Purple Rain

I just realized that I've been avoiding the song "Purple Rain" ever since my mom died.

This story actually begins in January when I decided to pull out a Prince CD Pete gave me for Mothers Day last year that I had not yet given a proper chance. After spending most of November and December mourning Michael Jackson's passing, I decided it was time to celebrate the living. I wondered fleetingly how I could've neglected Prince for so many years, but wasn't looking for an answer... just another musical love affair thrown to the wayside when the next flavor came along. But when I put in the CD (of newer music, released in 2007), I remembered that this was never just some affair, this is the purple Prince of Pop. It was all I listened to in February. By mid-March I was craving something different but the thirst for Prince was not quenched. I bought a 'best of'' CD when I got my netbook, and couldn't wait to make it the first music on my new toy. I downloaded late last night and listened first thing this morning. Very enjoyable. Wanna be Your Lover, 1999, Little Red Corvette, When Doves Cry, Let's go Crazy... I was totally in a groove, cleaning and cooking breakfast, shakin' my booty to get a laugh outta my son.

When the first chords of "Purple Rain" came on, I felt them on my heart strings. I realize this is terribly corny and I apologize. I'm not aiming for a cheesy metaphor. I'm telling you that I felt it, physically, in the area of my heart. When I heard the first verse, a flood of emotions overwhelmed me and brought me to tears in an instant. I was caught off guard by the feelings of missing my mom. I've become very good at avoiding things that can trigger this. There was a period of time when I was about 12 years old - I'd say maybe 4 to 6 months - during which my mom and I put on either Purple Rain (the movie) or Heartburn (you've probably never heard of it) at least once during every single weekend. For a couple of minutes today, as I listened to the lyrics for the first time in many years, 75% of me was back in the dingy living room of Elmer's shitty house, sitting on the ugly old carpet with my mom at the table behind me... loving this movie because it's not just entertaining (and quite naughty), but it's something that takes my mother's attention away from Elmer for a while. The other 25% of me was standing in my kitchen with a spatula in my hand, suddenly sobbing, knowing that these brief moments, when I allow them, are the only times I will ever spend with my mother for the rest of my life.

Meet my mother, Andrea. She was gone ten years this January, and she would have been 55 this April.

My mother's father, Frank, left his first wife, Eileen, for his mistress. He married the mistress, Linda ~ and they had my mom. Then he left Linda and took my mom with him back to Eileen and their two daughters.

First of all, my grandmother Linda was an alcoholic (like, big time). Second, there is some evidence my mom may have had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Also, her father suffered from manic depression and an addictive personality (he took to alcohol and vitamins). So as far as being set up to fail, she pretty much had it made. Her father died in a car accident when she was in her early twenties. Something inside her snapped and so began her demise. Almost right away she fell in love-at-first-sight with a man twice her age on a bus. She had an affair and divorce soon followed. I was a toddler at the time, and I went to live with Gramma (that would be Linda, the raging alcoholic) while my mother chased Dick. Oh, excuse me ~ I forgot to tell you the old man on the bus was named Dick. Apropos.

See Dick. See Dick run. See Mommy run after Dick. See Dick run and hide. Repeat. Repeat. See Mommy look for new dick.

You get the picture.

My mom was a fun-loving woman, and certain aspects of being a mother were appealing to her. Creating the coolest playhouse in our basement was a project that she enjoyed. She delighted in finding miniature versions of "real" things, such as the tiny jar of Best Foods mayo that was perfectly proportionate to my little ply-wood refrigerator. Every Halloween, whether I lived with her or with Gramma, I became her little dolly. She came up with the costume idea every year, she busted out the sewing machine and made a killer costume, and she loved doing my makeup. She loved planning my birthday parties. I've had a roller-skating clown at my house, as well as a magician that pulled a rabbit out of a hat, and I got to invite friends to a cabin in Tahoe one year and another year we got our own room and room service in a big "fancy" hotel.

Andrea was also a huge fan of all things gross! Two of her long-term boyfriends (Dick and Elmer) were really gross, on many levels. Her all-time favorite movie character was the truck driver in Thelma & Louise - she loooved him!!! She liked men-on-men porn. **Hey, moms out there: your kids do not need to know certain things about you, okay?** Although she had good taste generally speaking, and liked cute little sports cars, she got a kick out of owning an orange and brown Gremlin... in the 90s!! Oh my God, the horror of being a 15-year old in Walnut Creek whose mom drove a Gremlin. I was so glad when that piece of shit broke down after a week or two!

She was a really good cook. But fun and gross prevailed, even in the kitchen. Every Thanksgiving, without fail, she would make some nasty turkey-neck jokes. One time she shaped our meatloaf into a huge cock-n-balls.

Damn I miss her.

Granted, she was no June Cleaver. On the contrary, she had great disdain for women of "that nature". But we had a lot of fun together, especially when I was finally old enough to drink with her. You know ~ 15.

I will not take any more of your time trying to explain this statement, but I do believe she was my biggest fan. And I think I was her best friend. I know I tried. After I lost her, I realized that she did her best, as we all do.



I never meant to cause you any sorrow.
I never meant to cause you any pain.
I only wanted to one time see you laughing.
I only wanted to see you laughing in the purple rain.