My mom (circa 1953)

My mom died on January 27, 2020. Grief is a strange experience. Grief is also NOT linear. Even though she has been gone for three years, there are still memories of her that appear at random times, popping to the top of my consciousness like errant butterflies flitting across a garden full of flowers waving in the breeze.

That’s her in the picture—the brunette nestled next to her dad. She was the elder of two “oops babies” that arrived when my grandmother thought she was done having children. My uncle Joe (the barefooted towhead) is the baby of the family. My mom and her younger brother were both treated like dolls by their older siblings.

Mom was a dark-haired beauty. Her name literally means beautiful. For much of her life, she had other people looking out for her. When my mom and dad got divorced and we moved back in with her mother (my grandmother), mom reverted back to a kid in many ways. Grandma was the disciplinarian and parent; mom behaved like “sort of my parent,” but also reacted a lot like a daughter again.

She used to tell me that my brain would be my ticket to college, but she never understood the paperwork part of getting me there. In the forward of my book, Circuit Train Your Brain, I recount an experience I had at the School of the Art Institute. At that time, I was receiving recruitment materials in the mail from colleges like Parson’s School of Design in Los Angeles and New York City. When I consider my opportunities in hindsight, I can imagine that I’d be a slam-dunk for a full ride scholarship—a bright, artistic kid from the sticks, child of a single mother.

But mom couldn’t seem to connect the dots when it came to the bureaucracy of applying to schools. I don’t mean to sound as if I’m blaming her; it’s more a statement of fact. Since my grandmother had died when I was 13 years old, I didn’t have a person in my life who understood structure. A child of the Great Depression, Grandma had multiple bank accounts in different financial institutions. It was she who managed the family budget. She was the paperwork person.

In retrospect, I think part of the reason I had such a difficult time scaling the nonprofit I established was because I couldn’t grasp the mechanics of how to get from point A (set goal) to point B (achieving it). As a founder, I brought my sheer power of will, obstinance, charisma and a personal story to which many could relate.

If you haven’t already figured it out, this post is another stream of consciousness one, designed to serve as a portion of my work in progress/next book. Part of why I established the organization was to help other women like me: women who knew they were misaligned, but lacked the structure to move beyond their current circumstances.

It failed in part because I was trying to give something that I did not have.

The dissolution of that organization provided additional lessons, but those are posts for another day.

Mom was responsible, however, for teaching me about the power of being kind to people. She was also a good listener. As a barber, a lot of people told her things they never told anyone else. Mom knew how to honor the confidence placed in her by her clients.

She also, through her time at the barber college she attended, taught me how to respect people from different walks of life. Her classmates represented various ethnicities, gender expressions and sexual orientation.

When she went to take her state boards (tests for her barber licensure), she went to a mission located in the state capitol to ask if any of the people living there would like to serve as one of her models. I’ll never forget how the man she chose walked differently after he had a fresh hair cut. He had found a suit to wear to the place where mom took her tests, and after his haircut, he tightened his tie, tucked his shirt in and buttoned his vest.

During her funeral, I shared a story about one of her clients whose hair was extremely dirty. It was too dirty for Mom to run a comb through. The dirt would also damage the expensive shears she used. Mom paused, went back to the laundry room at her shop and poured a few ounces of Dawn dishwashing detergent into a clear container. When her client asked what it was, Mom told her it was a pre-treatment designed to emulsify scalp oils. She never once treated people without dignity.

So she was a terrible bureaucrat, but a pretty amazing human. Life is weird.

Okay. Crying now. Gotta go.

Thanks for supporting my work. Be kind. Drink your water.

P.S. Every Sunday, I publish a free weekly newsletter called the 3 Minute Reset, which includes life lessons, life hacks and treats. To subscribe, click here.