Mom (2 page)

She got married to my dad, George Ericksen, who was probably not a very easy person to live with.They waited about five years to have me, because she wasn’t sure the marriage was going to take. I remember her telling me that he proposed to her after he had fixed the toilet in the house. He came in, in his true romantic style, wiping his hands on a towel and saying, “You know, if we got married, I’d be here all the time to fix the toilet.” [
laughs
] Whoo, makes you swoon! They were polar opposites. Dad was very introverted, and Mom was very extroverted. There were some rocky moments.

She had a real strong faith, and she put together prayer groups. In the early 1960s, she arranged for an interracial prayer group in Tampa, Florida. There were threats of crosses to be burnt on our yard.We were in a very conservative neighborhood, too. But that just made her even more determined to continue to do things like that.

My mom never met a stranger. She hugged people that she never met before. Her mission in life was to bring up the financial status of waiters and waitresses everywhere—she would leave a twenty-dollar tip sometimes for a five-dollar meal. And when it was pointed out to her that her tip might be a tad too high in terms of normal percentages, she was irate. There was no stopping her tipping. In fact, at the meal that we had right before her funeral we left a Frances Ericksen memorial tip for the waitress that was almost the price of fifteen of us eating there.

My mom and I were pretty compatible up to adolescence, but then we grated on each other’s nerves quite a bit, and our relationship really kind of went downhill from there. Even after I left the house, I felt like all of my conversations with her were very judgment-laden and critical, especially because I wasn’t following the religious path that she wanted me to follow.

Finally, when I was about thirty, we were together at the house, and we just had a miserable weekend. I felt our relationship was awful, and I told her right before I left that I couldn’t deal with her criticism anymore and that it wasn’t helping me. She said, “That’s what mothers do. Who would tell you if not your mother?” And I said I didn’t need a mother anymore; I needed a friend. If she wanted to continue to try to be my mother that way, I didn’t want it—but to call me if she wanted to be my friend.

After I left, she was very angry. I talked to my dad once in the interim, and he told me how upset she was. I almost didn’t expect to hear from her, because she could be a little stubborn.

I think about two weeks after that conversation, I picked up the phone and a small voice on the other side said, “Hi, this is your friend.” . . . [
crying
]

And it was.

Leah Haseley:
I have so many memories of Mom that make me smile.

I really miss her when I pick up the children from school, because she used to love picking me up from school. I remember it very clearly, coming down the ramp out of school and her having this big grin on her face because she got to pick me up. I would go running to her. My younger one still does that for me.

I remember her teaching me to drive around the neighborhood, and all of a sudden I drove up onto a curb. Mom got out of the car, giggled, and looked at the teenagers nearby and said, “She’s learning to drive.” I had driven completely onto the curb, and rather than yell at me, she had this positive, funny approach to it. The next time I got in the car, I drove very slowly, and I said, “I’m nervous.” Rather than tell me to relax, she sat up and said, “Good.You should be nervous! This is a very dangerous thing to be doing.” And to this day I still use that. I used it in the hospital a few weeks ago. I was working with a very good resident who I was training to do a procedure, and he looked up at me, and he said, “I’m nervous.” I said, “Good. You should be nervous! It’s a dangerous thing to do.” And actually, I think that helped him relax. I think it helps to have your nervousness understood. I’m sure when I teach my children to drive, I’ll miss her like crazy.

Whenever I’m having difficulty with one of the children, I often think,
What would Mom say to do in this situation?
Some of the things that Mom told me I use a lot with my kids. One is, Mom always used to say, “You be the one.”
You
be the one to make up with a friend or to reach out and break the silence between you. So whenever one of the kids announces that he had a fight with another child at school and he’s not talking to them, I always say, “That’s not going to help you at all.
You
be the one to reach out and try to connect with your friend again.” The other thing Mom used to say was, “If you’re ever on the fence about whether to stay home or to go somewhere,” she used to say, “just
go
!” So I say that to the kids whenever they’re torturing themselves about any kind of decision that they have.

Mom took me to Boston when I was starting my residency. She was quite sick at that time, but she was bent on taking me to Boston to shepherd me through finding a place to live. It was our last trip together as mom and daughter, and we slept in the same room in this bed-and-breakfast. After we got in bed she said to me, “I want you to know a few things.” And it was very clear that she wanted to give me advice before she died.

So when we were in bed, she said to me, “When you have children, always remember that a parent should be like a gas station. The children can come to you and then go out into the world and do their things and then come back for more. But be careful that the gas station stays in one place. Don’t run after your children. Just stay there in the gas station to give them support.” That’s something that I’ve always governed myself by. Whenever I see myself running after one of the kids or trying to control what they’re doing, I always try to stop myself and say, “I’m just the gas station.”

My mother was a career woman, and she was proud of that, but I think above all she would want to be remembered as a really remarkable mother. On countless occasions she would say to me, “You and Jon are the greatest thing I ever did in my life.” And I always say that to the children: “You are the greatest thing I ever did in my life!”

Grace Cruz:
What was the happiest moment in your life?

José Cruz:
When I heard that I was coming to New York to be with my mother. She left Santo Domingo when I was six years old. I used to see the letters that she wrote, but I wasn’t a very good reader and I couldn’t understand her handwriting. On one occasion, she sent a recording—I remember that it was a reel-to-reel tape. My grandmother, my grandfather, my aunt, and myself went to a neighbor’s house, and we sat there listening to my mother say how much she missed us. She ended that whole recording with a hymn, “Hogar de Mis Recuerdos [Home Sweet Home].” At the end, we were all in tears.

Grace:
Would you say that listening to the recording of her voice was also one of the saddest moments of your life because you hadn’t been with her for so long?

José:
Well, it was sad when I heard her sing and say how much she loved me, but it also felt good because I was hearing her voice, and I had never heard a recording of my mother’s voice before. I think it was 1960, and we didn’t have access to technology the way we do now—we didn’t even have a camera, and we had just gotten a refrigerator. But to be able to listen to her voice—to me, my mother became like a movie star. So I was happy, although I did feel a yearning to be with her.

I think the saddest moment was when I saw her get on the airplane for New York City in 1957.
That
was sad. I remember that my uncle said, “You’re going to cry when your mom leaves.” And I said, “I’m not going to cry,” because I thought he was going to make fun of me. I kept my tears inside—but I think I’ve been crying ever since.

For the longest time I just kept wanting to come to New York to be with her. Not that I felt lonely—I was never lonely in Santo Domingo because I had so many cousins and there was so many things to do. But I used to look at those postcards my mother would send, and I always imagined that I would either live on Fifth Avenue or in the Empire State Building—that I would live in those postcards. But when I came to New York, I was a little bit disappointed because we lived in West Harlem, and instead of living in the Empire State Building, we lived in the basement of a tenement building. But the fact that I was in New York compensated for all that—I finally was living with my mother.

One of the things that kept me going as a child is that my mother told me that I was the cutest thing in Villa Juana [a neighborhood in Santo Domingo]. She would say to me,
“Tú eres lo más lindo de Villa Juana,”
and she would give me a big kiss. I felt so good. As I grew older, I met this girl named Edwina. She said to me, “José, you’re a big-headed, ugly fool!” And I said, “Edwina, you’re crazy! My mother told me I was the cutest thing in Villa Juana! My mother says I’m handsome, and that’s what’s important to me!” She couldn’t understand what I was talking about, but
I
knew. So my mother built the self-confidence in me that no one could take away.

My mother worked hard, and she told me when we first came to New York, “You know, I brought you to United States so that you could have the opportunity that I never had. I want you to take advantage of everything this country has to offer.” I was in seventh grade, and I remember thinking about that and seeing her go to work, come home, cook dinner, and then leave to go to night classes to study English. And I never heard her complain: “Oh, I’m so tired! This work is so terrible!” I just saw her do what she had to do and ask me, “Have you done your homework?” So she has been, without a doubt, the most influential person in my life—in terms of work ethic, in terms of morals, in terms of just being grateful for what you have.

Grace:
Based on that, are there any words of wisdom you’d like to pass along to me?

José:
Well, to you I would say something that my mother told me once. She called me Chichi. She said, “Chichi, I see what other kids are doing. I don’t ever want you to do anything in your life that would bring dishonor to who you are or to me.” She said, “You know what I would like you to be, Chichi? Just like you’ve been so far: Always make me proud of you. I don’t want you to be the smartest kid, I don’t want you to be the best—just do the best you can, and I will always be proud of you, and I will always love you.” I’ll never forget that.