Theresa Joan Nason 1928 - 2010

My mom died on this day four years ago.  She was never famous, except to me and everyone who loved her, and many people did.  She was that kind of person.  Mom always had time to listen to people, truly listen, and with exceptional empathy and concern for whatever problems they were wrestling with.  Even in her last year, when she was valiantly struggling to cope with the physical difficulties of being on dialysis thrice a week for a quarter-century, she still tried to listen and offer her invariably wise counsel.  She never told people what to do unless they sought her advice; she was acutely aware of her many gifts.

She could easily have become famous in the more mundane sense if she'd wanted to -- she was beautiful enough in her youth to cause more than one person to suggest she take up modeling.  But that world wasn't the world she wanted to be part of.  Still, she came close:  She was a top-notch executive secretary at Macy's and had the responsibility of coordinating the department store's tie-ins with movies that would advertise at the store in those days.  On one noteworthy occasion she was on the set when Macy's was filming scenes for the 1947 classic film Miracle on 34th Street on location in the store.  She babysat Natalie Wood between takes.  She watched the crew spend a whole afternoon filming one shot of some actors walking out of an elevator, take after take after take.  Natalie was a little girl at the time, and probably kept my mom pretty busy.  

She had that unmistakable 1940s glamour, but she was too down-to-earth to seek a modeling or acting career.  Macy's wanted to train her for a full-scale executive position, unusual for women in those days, but my mom wanted to marry my dad and have children instead.  That's what women were "supposed to do" in those days, she later told me.  But my sister and I were the beneficiaries of her talents, which instead of going to a corporation went into raising us.  She was a voracious reader, of both serious books and fun books; she loved theater, and saw all the great plays and musicals on Broadway; she was an avid film-goer -- her favorite star was Gregory Peck -- and she continued to love movies long after the Golden Age of Hollywood was over.  She knew better than some of her film critics that wonderful films are always being made if you just look for them.

Mom was always deeply interested in both politics and sports, and followed both avidly throughout her life.  She was unfailingly shrewd about both.  She considered Harry Truman a great president back when conventional wisdom dismissed him as a bungler, and the wags said "To err is Truman."  She knew better.  When the first news about the Watergate break-in was reported, she immediately sensed it was an operation that came right from the White House; she called in during Bob Grant's long-running New York radio show and said as much, and Grant said, "Have you been out of the country lady?  Do you think Haldeman and Ehrlichman plotted it in a back room in the White House?"  "Yes," my mom said.  History vindicated her on that.  As a Cub Scout den mother, she taught little boys how to swing a bat -- I'm told she had a pretty good swing.  Our house was filled with books about history -- both hers and my dad's -- which I only came to appreciate when I was much older; but her stories about the great historic events that occurred before I was born lit a spark in my imagination and helped turned me into a reader of history myself.  But perhaps most important of all, she stressed the importance of values, of being a decent person, and being kind to others.  I can't say I've been as kind a person as she was, but she gave me a standard to try to live up to.  I'm still trying, and when I remember my mom, whom I loved with all my heart, I make a note to myself to try harder.  I'm sure that everyone who knew her and loved her feels pretty much the same way.