Sixty
Today, my mom turned 60. Never mind that she doesn’t look 60. Or act 60. Trust me--she's 60. Theresa Ann Cropley Phillips Hunt is the daughter of Annie & Pap Cropley, who are famous in San Clemente and don’t really need an introduction. They are also known locally as Mr. & Mrs. T Street. Her older brother Charlie is an N.D. and health guru who seems to be living in a different place each time I hear from him but usually ends up back in Boulder, CO. His two kids live in Montana. Or Wyoming. I’m not sure. Her younger brother Rick, also called Hodie, is local to San Clemente with his wife and two kids, who are shockingly all grown up! The Cropley’s moved around a lot when mom was a kid since Pap was a Marine. But ever since they landed in San Clemente many, many years ago, mom hasn’t budged.
Her best friend is Melinda Sylstra, whom she has known since Junior High School. But she also has deep friendships with a number of women whom she seems to have known forever. Susie Smith, Janet Piorek and many others. I can’t remember a time in my life when my mom did not have these deep, abiding friendships and I don’t expect that will ever change.
She had me, her first child, when she was 21. At 23 she had Genesis and at 25 she had Jonathan. That’s all—just three. She had been married to my dad for almost 27 years when he died in 1993. If he was still alive today, they would have hit their 40th anniversary on December 16. A few years after dad died she married Scott Hunt, who is now referred to as Papa Scott because 7 years and 362 days ago, Bailey Madison Phillips was born to my brother and his wife, Carrie. She was the first of my mom’s five grandkids. Since then Jon & Carrie have had two more kids, Daniel, age 4 (he shares my dad’s name and his birthday) and Christian, age 2. I had Thelonious who is 6 and Ione who is a month older than Daniel. Genesis and Eric have so far withheld the spread of their DNA from us, which is good since I am fairly convinced that their first child will be born with a freakishly oversized head due to the enormous vocabulary that will somehow be transported through the umbilical cord of my sister into the brain of her progeny in utero. My kid’s first words were ‘bye’ and ‘uh oh’. Their child’s first word will probably be ‘transcendental’ or ‘profundity’. And it might even be spoken with an English accent. We’ll have to wait and see.
Mom spent the years that she and Dad raised us kids as a stay-at-home-mom. He was a go-to-work-dad. I tried this stay-at-home-mom thing for a few years and found that it requires incredible stamina, clear focus, flexibility, patience beyond measure, an indescribable ability to tolerate monotony, and the willingness to give of yourself to unappreciative and demanding little people even when you would rather leave them outside in the hopes that they will be adopted by a pack of wolves so you can just get twenty minutes to yourself!! I’m back at work full-time now so you can draw your own conclusions about me. But my mom hung in there. I’m sure we put her through the ringer over the years, but she loved us anyway. And she never made us feel that there was anything she would rather be doing. We had no idea how good we had it.
Things have changed over the years and life has not been easy. But mom has held tight. She picked up the pieces of her life when my dad died. She managed to find another life-partner in Scott (and a new nickname to boot) and a stepson to love and care for in Nathaniel. She has been embraced by the Hunts as one of their own and hence has extended the boundaries of her family farther than I think she ever imagined. She has survived the illnesses and deaths of family members and friends. She has even endured tremendous trials within her own family. And she did it all with courage and loyalty…and without having to leave San Clemente.
It’s been a full 60 years, but I expect she’s really only at the beginning of a new phase of her life. I don’t know what it feels like to be 60 but I suspect there is some level of personal freedom that comes when you hit this milestone. Like, you can get fat and ugly and no one cares...because you’re 60! Of course, Terri hasn’t really had to deal with any of that because she’s gotten neither fat nor ugly. I don’t imagine this will change much either. Aging hasn’t diminished her external beauty and being married to a younger man helps keep her feeling young. It think she’s got it all figured out. Of course, in another ten years when she turns 70 and people still comment that she looks like my ‘older sister’ I might stop taking that as a compliment…we’ll see.
Since it is her birthday and on birthday’s you give gifts I want to share the best gift she ever gave me. It’s the best because it’s the thing that I value most in life--my independence and the freedom to be myself. Not many moms do this well, but she did. I may have chosen a different who, what, when, why and where for myself then she would have chosen for me. Regardless, she gave me the space to become who I needed to be. She let me figure it out. She even let me move far away--twice--and never once has she made me feel bad about it. Never. She let me make my mistakes. She let me clean up my own messes. She did it with love and understanding. And she did it all without leaving San Clemente.
Happy Birthday, Sizzle!
Love,
EE
Thursday, December 13, 2007
