My mom, at age 90, above, was born Carole Anne Cytron in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, on April 27, 1932, the fourth child (third living) of her parents, Mildred (Mimi) Klein Cytron and Stanley Cytron. Her family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, when she was twelve.

She first married my father, Ira Fleischmann, of St. Louis, Missouri, where they mostly lived, in 1952, and began having their four children in 1953, starting with my brother, Jonathan, then me in 1954, then had a couple of miscarriages before having my middle sister, (Wendy) Ellen, in 1960, then a few more failed pregnancies before ending with my youngest sibling, Lauri Anne, in 1965.

In 1971, she finally threw my abusive, adulterous, lying father out of our house and divorced him in 1973. He had two other marriages after theirs and died suddenly at age 60 of a heart attack. She supported each of us in that grief and hosted us for the funeral and shiva (mourning week) times, even attending the funeral herself.

After being single for about ten years, she married Sylvester (Les) Harris, and she stayed with him until his death in 2000, at age 72. They enjoyed gambling and going to Las Vegas, which they did many times when he was well enough to do that.

She was a talented poet/lyricist/playwright who wrote many parodies and shows for fundraisers and political candidates while raising her children and after that. She also was a great dancer (chosen to do a ballroom dance demo while still in high school at a fancy hotel, the Chase Park Plaza, in midtown St. Louis), could still do cartwheels after having three children, and went to almost all of my and my siblings’ sports and performance events.

Not a great piano player herself, she made sure we each had music lessons (drums for my brother and piano for my sisters and me). She also sang a lot to us and around us, something we all do, still. She played fun record albums on our stereo turntable, and the radio was usually on if the TV was not.

She didn’t much like cooking, but she was a passable cook, a great shopper and excellent planner for large family meals and regular dinners while she was able. Unfortunately, she was ill for most of my adolescence, having been forced to have an unnecessary hysterectomy which put her into early menopause in her mid-thirties and sent her into chronic pain and depression. She gave me cooking lessons and instructions from her bed, which I followed and I made most of the family meals from age 12 to almost 18. Once she got better, she returned to having large family meals, especially when her far-flung children would come “home” for holidays, weddings, funerals and other occasions. Her blueberry cake was legendary, and she would make it every year. She loved to see people enjoy being together, laughing and eating.

Her favorite group pastime was to play games, and the Hearts game (often with two decks, since we numbered so many) became a tradition of after-dinner gatherings for decades. Laughing until we peed or coughed, shouting, taunting some into tears, and accusations of cheating and slamming cards on the table were regular occurrences at these rousing games of at least 5 and sometimes 10 players. She usually won! We also played Cribbage, Spite and Malice (cutthroat double solitaire), Scrabble, and Go Fish (for the younger ones) regularly with two to five people, which still involved much laughing, shouting and some crying. She made a point of playing whatever games anyone wanted to play, with grandchildren and great-grandchildren, until she couldn’t any longer. She loved to teach each new one the rules and see them get better. It was a milestone in each of our lives if we could ever beat her at any of these games (rarely!).

For decades, until she was unable to do it any longer, she would spend months and many dollars to purchase or acquire gifts for EACH of us and EACH of her 12 grandchildren EACH year for all 8 nights of Chanukah (and MAIL BOXES across the country as needed), even if one gift was a pair of socks or a pen. For her decades of being a marketing purchaser for Seven-Up, Phillip Morris, and other companies, she had lots of free swag and “bribes” she accumulated each year that she could offload to us as well. We got beach towels with Snoopy or Joe Camel on them, Seven-Up toy trucks, real phones that looked like a soda can, emblazoned sunglasses, T-shirts and sweatshirts with casino logos, imprinted mugs and glasses, branded coasters and tableware, and so much more.

She had her group of “girls” with whom she played mah jong and canasta for decades, until, one-by-one, they each died, went into nursing care, moved to Florida, or became too infirm to play. Until age-related macular degeneration (AMD) took most of her eyesight and COVID removed her from playing these games, she had been playing mah jong four times a week, well into her 80s. She and one other mah jong friend, known from her junior high days and ever since, were the last ones standing right before she died.

When she could still do it (and we got her many assistive devices, but they all eventually weren’t helpful enough), she read or listened to many books per week her entire life. She took me and my brother to get our library cards when I was 3 and he was 4, and I have used the library ever since, as did she. She also liked to guess the Sunday Puzzler answers along with (BEFORE) the live contestant on the NPR Weekend Edition radio show, hosted by Will Shortz.

From all her reading, she could use her wide-spread knowledge. We watched Jeopardy together most nights and she would call out the questions to answers from many categories. When she could still see, she loved Wheel of Fortune and usually got the clues way before the contestants.

She would get me to watch her beloved St. Louis baseball Cardinals when the games were on early enough (I go to bed early) and narrate what she couldn’t see any longer, since the TV hosts were AWFUL at saying what was actually happening in the games. We would also watch many TV crime, medical, and other drama shows together (she got me in the NCIS, Blue Bloods, Chicago, and FBI series), and many other specials and awards shows we liked to comment on as we viewed them. I got some great DVDs from the library and we would watch those when the shows were in reruns.

Mom, a few weeks before she died, at 92.

I miss her smile, her laugh, her kindness, her cool under pressure, and her generosity. She was always available to listen to anyone who called, even the repetitive ones (and many of her friends were such). She had more patience than I could even imagine having.

She and I share our VERY short stature (she got down to 4’6″; I am down to 4’10”), love of reading, games, music and singing, certain movies and TV shows (we watched together a lot while I lived with her for the last 10 years of her life). I wish she were still here so she could have met her 13th great-grand and my only grandchild.

Luckily, we made over a dozen videos when she was still feeling good, the two of us singing and doing hand motions, reading poems, and talking to the camera for my granddaughter, who recently has been watching them with me and loving them. She now “knows” Mama C (as her grands and great-grands knew her), which I am so grateful for.

Here is one: This is the two of us singing a melody she wrote for a Robert Louis Stevenson poem from A Child’s Garden of Verses, The Swing. It’s one of my granddaughter’s favorites, and she asks me to sing it every time I am pushing her on a swing. Thanks, Mom.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-ZQywP-AvXaz3jdaQvkhCwJz-uhZL7Hr/view?usp=drive_link

I am putting flowers all around you this week, Mom: violets, irises, lilacs, tulips and roses, all your favorites. I also planted purple irises in the garden I have here, the Mama C Memorial Garden, which will bloom next year, near the tulips.

Thank you for being my mom.