Mom (13 page)

We were fortunate in finding it out early, so we could enjoy her. She hasn’t known us for a long time, though she seems to know that you’re there to see her or that you’re connected to her somehow. I don’t know how to explain that feeling— you’ll be in the dining room and there will be forty-some people there, but she seems to understand that you’re there for her. When my daughter was a baby, I had her sitting in my mom’s lap. My mom had not said my name in several years, not seemed to know who I was, and she leaned down and she kissed my daughter on the top of her head and said, “Martha’s baby.” Which just about floored me.

One day I went to visit her, and she thought she worked there; she was helping this woman to the bathroom. The woman was asking my mom about how many children she had.Well, it was obvious my mom did not remember, so I said, “Mom, do you remember how many boys you had?” And she said, “No.” I said, “Do you remember how many girls?” And she said “No.” Then she says, “Well, smarty pants, how many kids do I have?” And so I said, “Mom, you have thirteen children.” And she said, “What? Was I crazy??” It was so funny because she had absolutely no idea that that was her life, but she had managed it exceptionally well.

CATHY NICKELS (
left
) AND MARTHA WELCH MENDEZ (
right
)

Sharon Capra:
My husband went into the air force in 1976, and soon after I got pregnant with my firstborn son, Tony. Eleven other siblings came after that, and I’ll say their names right now: Jason, James, Michael, Rachel, Sarah, Joseph, Jacob, Danielle, Joanna, Julia, and Emily.

My husband was a missile launch officer and he also did OSI [Office of Special Investigations], and so he was gone a lot, and many times Tony was the oldest in the home. He liked to be the man of the house. He would take the dog for a walk when he was four—I don’t know if the dog walked him or he walked the dog. And he was always wanting to do the big guy stuff—you know, take the trash out—all you saw was the trash can, you didn’t see the kid. [
laughs
] When I was really busy with the children and Tony was in the car with me, many times I’d pull up to the front of a supermarket or a post office and he would run in there and do all the errands. He thought that it was fun to be a “guy,” you know, to be a man. He really wanted to be like his dad.

When he was a young child, he would wear his father’s BDUs [battle dress uniforms] and walk around the house and say he was a soldier. That seemed like his career choice from very young on. He would tell me, “Mom, buy me some military books.” He seemed fascinated with war strategy, which seemed boring to me. I said, “Look, can’t I buy you a different book?” and he’d say, “No, it really fascinates me!” So I would. When everything would get crazy in the house, he’d retreat to his bedroom, close the door, and read those books.

When I would get the children to bed, sometimes he and I would sit up and watch movies and eat popcorn. One time I told him, “You know, I just loved you so much, I wanted to have more children because you were just so great.” He said, “Well, Mom, logically, I think that you should’ve had just me. If you really liked me so much, you didn’t need anybody else!”

He was very smart and very quick to grasp ideas, but he wanted to always think of ways that he could improve them. I would show him a math problem, and I would say, “This is the formula.” And he’d say, “I bet I could do it in a different way.” So he would try to figure out another way to get around it. At the time it was very frustrating. I thought,
Can’t you just do it the way I’m telling you to do it?
But he would try to figure out a different way. He’d say, “Mom, you said that it’s not right to do something, but why?” One time, he listened to the radio and heard about homosexuals wanting to be parents, and he said, “You know, I don’t understand why they can’t be just as good parents as a heterosexual couple.” He would challenge me to think outside the box.

He opened my eyes to the fact that children are not just little mes—they’re their own people, and they have their own opinions. We raised our children to be Christians, but as the years went on I realized that even though I value something, my children have to decide what their values are and how they’re going to define themselves. You can guide and encourage, but eventually they have to make those choices. There were times when I didn’t like it, but that’s what life is about.

When Tony graduated from high school, he met Angie. I was in labor with my eleventh child, and he came running into my labor room and said, “Mom! Mom, I met the most beautiful woman in the world!” and I said, “Tony, not right now, I’m in labor!” He said, “No, I’ve got to tell you about her! She’s just gorgeous!” I was in
labor
—I thought,
Man, he’s really fallen for this woman
.

Eight months later he married her. He tried to get into the air force because the baby was coming and he needed a job. They said, “You had asthma as a boy, so we can’t let you in”—there was this one little episode where he had a respiratory syndrome. But he kept calling back, and the last time he called they said, “You’ve pestered us enough, and you only had one episode of this when you were two years old, so we’re going to go ahead and let you come in.” He called me up and said, “Mom, I got into the military!” He was really excited.

When I became a grandma, Tony called me on the phone, and he goes, “Mom! Mom, listen!” I heard crying, and he goes, “Mom, he’s just so awesome! Mom, he’s so healthy, and his little eyes are just so bright!” He just wouldn’t let him go. He stayed there all day and just held him. He was really happy to be a father.

Tony decided on EOD, which is explosive ordnance disposal. I was upset, and so was his wife. We wanted him to be safe, to choose a safe career path:
How about the library?
[
laughs
] But there was always something in him that was more daring. So when he told us his choice, I thought,
Yeah, that’s what he would do
. I still didn’t want him to do it, but he wasn’t going to change his mind.

So that’s what he did, and he really, thoroughly loved it. He did two missions to Afghanistan and two to Iraq. He didn’t like being away from his family, of course—that was his number one priority. By then he had five children, and he loved being with them, but he provided for his family really well and he thought that he was doing what he was supposed to do.

When he had his own family, our relationship changed—I had to let him go. It was hard, but I let him be who he was, and I was just extremely proud of him. I think that’s probably the miracle of parenting: over time, you think—you
know
—it’s just a miracle to see who they become as people.

I didn’t talk to Tony that often when he was in Iraq. A lot of my information would come from his brothers. He would diligently call them—but he didn’t want to worry me. If I wanted to hear anything, I had to hear it from someone else—I’d overhear his brothers talking, but they wouldn’t tell me very much either. I think they were all just trying to protect Mom.

He had volunteered to go to Iraq the second time—his fourth mission—and it was there that he was hit by an IED. We just didn’t expect it. He had had some close calls while he was over there, but we just assumed that he would make it through again and he was going to come home soon. There was just no doubt in our minds. . . .

Angie lived about an hour away, and there were two teams coming to both homes at the same time to tell us. When we were told, I had my hands over my ears and I fell to the ground screaming, “
No!”
And his father just tried to hold it together and said, “Was there anybody else hurt?” and “Where’s my son now?”

We drove over to Angie’s and all their kids were playing outside. Angie and I started hugging and crying, and my husband goes, “You know, we don’t need to cry, because Tony did something very brave and we’re proud of him.” And then he said, “And that was my son. . . .” And he just couldn’t talk—he started to cry. I had never seen my husband cry before . . . and I saw how much his son meant to him.

My son lived. In his thirty-one years, he lived. Tony wanted to be in the military. He knew the dangers. He chose it. When I’m with my grandchildren, I’ll gather them around and I’ll talk to them about their father, and they’re very excited to listen. They want to know who their dad was. I want them to remember him with a smile. He was a character. But he was also brave, and I want them to be brave, too—to be courageous and to stand for what they think is right. People look back and remember you for the things you did for others, for the courage to live your life the way you thought you should, and for showing people that you love them. Life is more than just about you—and I think my son showed that through his life and through his death.

Kristi Hager:
I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot. In a couple of days, I’m going to be giving her eulogy, and I have an awful lot of stories to tell that I won’t be able to tell in ten minutes. She was spunky. She liked to get us out of the house in the summertime. She would say things like “Get out and shake the stink off!” She couldn’t stand us sitting around. Somebody who wrote me a condolence note said, “Your mom was rock solid,” and that’s a quality that really rings true to me. Because she was from the Midwest, she had a real solid, no-nonsense attitude towards life. I’m going to miss that.

I remember moments when my mother and I shared completely blissful laughing fits. The kind where something gets you going, and you start laughing—and you know you’re laughing just because you’re laughing. Then you don’t know
why
you’re laughing, so you’re laughing at the fact that you don’t know why you’re laughing. . . .

One of the things that triggered one of those fits was when I was helping her study for her lifesaving exam so she could be a lifeguard at our swimming pond. I was about nine years old. I would read her the questions, and she had the answers memorized. She had it down. So I asked her the question: “What do you do when you’re swimming in a pond and the weeds below start to pull you under?” And she just answered, “Extricate yourself with slow, undulating motions.” The words came out of her mouth and we both looked at each other and burst into this laughing fit—sides
aching
! I didn’t even know what it meant; I just knew that it was the funniest thing I had ever heard. She was laughing so hard until we did-n’t even know why we were laughing anymore.

I got into that state with my mother probably two or three times in my life, and that was when we weren’t mother and daughter anymore. Those roles just kind of fell by the wayside, and at those moments we were just two people laughing. It’s a transcendent moment, and I treasure it. I kind of forgot about those words for years and years and years, but that moment of laughter I never forgot.

I feel a certain longing. It’s a very animal type of longing. My enduring image is her sitting with the other mothers in the neighborhood while she watched us swimming in the pond. I just have this image of her sitting with her knees in front of her and her arms resting on her knees and her back was so tan. Right now I just think of that warm back, and I just want to put my cheek next to it. It’s just visceral. Her presence there on the shore was so reassuring.