Mom’s Double Life as Lucille Ball

Kelley Paystrup

Only it was hard having a mother who was far more popular than I was.  Frankly, and I’m ashamed to say it, she frequently embarrassed me.

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“Kelley, you are so lucky!  Your mom is just like I Love Lucy!” I would smile, nod my head in agreement, and wish it weren’t true.  But my madcap, beautiful mother did resemble Lucille Ball in her antics, her facial expressions, her mannerisms, her made-up words, and yes, her predicaments.  My friends adored her.  It made my house a very popular place to be, my girl scout troop the most desirable troop to be in, and my birthday party invitations sought after and my parties not to be missed.

Only it was hard having a mother who was far more popular than I was.  Frankly, and I’m ashamed to say it, she frequently embarrassed me. I didn’t feel comfortable going along with her schemes.  My brother, who was more outgoing as a child than I was, still had issues with being embarrassed.  Neither of us can watch I Love Lucy re-runs without squirming.

Yet Mom was so much more than that.  And as children we sold her short.  We took how wonderful she was for granted.

When the neighborhood children were growing restless in the summer, Mom pulled out arts and crafts supplies and got us all creating things, then loaded us all in our 1964 Malibu station wagon and entered us all in the community children’s art show. That was the first taste my friend John had of creating art, and he still credits my mom for stirring his interest in art today.  He’s a professional carousel horse carver.

When no one else jumped in to take the Cub Scout troop, Mom did, even though she was already my Girl Scout leader.  Mom was a doer.  When Mom saw a tiled kitchen she liked, she borrowed a book on how to do tiled work, bought some tiles, and proceeded to completely tile—designing in tiny tiles a pattern of kitchen ware—two walls of the kitchen.  It was the same for cementing the drive way, wall-papering, entering a talent show, or any other project she decided to complete.  Experienced or not, she jumped in with both feet and learned as she went—often with a few disasters along the way, much laughter, but ending up with what she wanted.

Mom was fiercely competitive in any game she played, never settling for second place and always playing to win.  She never lost for the kids’ sake.  She was always driven. This drive extended to her constant thirst for knowledge as she kept taking one free community college class after another, eventually earning her associates in library science at the age of 42.

She was a devoted friend.  She never forgot a birthday, a Catholic feast day, an anniversary, or Christmas.  A card was always sent, frequently with a novena card if the person was unwell(a pledge for nine masses dedicated to the person) inside.  When she was too poor to spend money on Christmas gifts the Christmas that she and my dad divorced, she found a deal on footie socks, four for a dollar, and gave each person a wrapped up pair of footies for Christmas.  It was too important to her that each person get something to unwrap for the holiday.

The only thing my mom was more devoted to than her friendships was her faith.  She was a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, a Catholic lay order. When she was working three part time jobs to try to keep a roof over our heads after the divorce, she was sponsoring Hmong  refugee families after the Vietnam war, helping them make connections, bringing them cookies, gathering clothes for them.  She was also volunteering at a woman and children in crisis shelter—which she volunteered me to be the Easter bunny for, but that’s another story—all while she barely had enough money for her own family.

It wasn’t until Mom’s funeral that I realized that Mom had never told any of her friends about all her countless acts of charity and service to the Hmong refugees and the women’s shelter.  She was a true servant of God in every sense.  She didn’t let her left hand—or in her case her best friends--know what her right hand was doing. 

She wasn’t a perfect mom.  She worked hard to hide Dad’s alcoholism from the neighbors.  We all did.  She hated that I changed religions.  So we fought for awhile.  But eventually we dealt with it.  And we healed.  And loved.  And grew.  And understood.  After Mom died I wrote to her and spent some time talking to her through my journal.  I was so grateful that I got to see a part of Mom that her friends never did.  I love you, Mom.  Kelley