My mom Arlene was a wonder.
I don’t recall anything she did that wasn’t filled with joy and love. She may have expressed anger, but I don’t think she was ever crabby.
One of her key hallmarks was cleaning. Us kids would say when she was buzzing about the house cleaning the floors, dusting or picking up that “it’s already clean!” We probably weren’t entirely wrong, but we were missing the point. Her zeal for keeping the house clean was less about dust or germs, but expressed a deep pride and gratitude for what she had, and this was a labor of love.
When I eulogized her nearly seven years ago, I said that she had deep joy that was inexplicable. She grew up one of two children of a divorced woman, which placed the family into meager earnings, and a “Polish flat” on Milwaukee’s south side. (This is another term for a basement apartment.) Yet, early every morning when we had to get up for school, there she was, bounding into our rooms, singing and giving us a brief summary of what the weather would be. I will admit, especially when we were getting up in the dark on a school day, that joy was annoying.
My mom told us stories of growing up, but they were never laced with bitterness. They were instead seasoned with stories of her dear “aunties” who lived nearby and gave her a childhood filled with family, support, and love. I marveled at what it may have been like to live in a basement, being cold during the winter, and why she wasn’t angry.
Yet even as a young girl, I remember those days of spring cleaning, windows open wide all around the house. The smell of fresh spring air, finally returning after winter, wafted into the house and the chilly air mixed with the clean smells of Pinesol and Clorox. Music from the AM radio was often playing, and my mom sang along.
She was celebrating her home while she scrubbed, and she once said that she never could have imagined living in such a beautiful place, even though it by any standard was (and still is) a modest home. It was her expression of care and gratitude to keep it clean and organized, even taking an entire day to remove every crystal drop that adorned the dining room chandelier (there must’ve been 150 of them) and washing them in a vinegar solution to make them sparkle.
This often was a near one-week endeavor, and yes we would offer to help. We were generally charged with cleaning our rooms, weeding through our clothes and other belongings that we no longer wanted. At the end of the gleaning and cleaning, she would enjoin us to realize how good it felt to be in a clean house again. Of course, we already thought it was clean enough, but her point was that to the average eye, nothing may appear cleaner than before, but she knew the work put into the farthest, unseen corner.
To this day, I believe all of us children have trouble going to bed with dirty dishes in the sink. Myself, I can’t leave the bed unmade, and I know I feel better after a thorough cleaning of my place, including behind the stove and refrigerator, even if I’m not expecting company. It’s true that no one may notice the cleanliness of unseen corners, but I know they are there, and like my mom, that’s what gives me a sense of gratitude and pride.
After all, everything I touch with a mop, dust cloth or sponge is mine to take care of, be grateful for, and I wouldn’t want to miss a spot.