Sunshine in Shreveport
by Jenna Litschewski

I check off the last item on my packing list after I put on the long, dangling necklace that my mother gave me, the one with the medallion that splits open and uncovers the engraved message that reads “You are my Sunshine.” I head down south to Louisiana to spend much-needed time with my extraordinary mother in her lovely home, decorated in every hue of memories.

In 1957, my mother, Jenny, and her two best friends, Lyda and Joan, drove from their small town of Minden, Louisiana, to attend a Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority rush party luncheon at a home in Shreveport. My mom still remembers the details of the dress that her mother (my grandmother) lovingly designed and sewed for her to wear to the rush party at the fancy home in the “big city.” My grandmother had never dreamed that my mom might actually go to college, much less join a sorority, especially since no one else in her family had ever gone to college nor could they have afforded it if they had wanted to go. But my mom did want to go to college and she wanted to be in what she considered the best sorority with all the “pretty and classy girls,” so my grandmother made sure that my mother would stand out as the most beautifully dressed in her sleeveless blue dress (the same color as the Kappa sorority blue color) with a Peter Pan collar, hand-embroidered front, and a perfectly-ironed and heavily-starched full skirt, made even fuller by the horse-hair petticoat worn underneath it.

Striking in blue, my mother confidently knocked on the front door of the upscale white house. A lady wearing an all-white linen outfit greeted my mother and her two friends. Her light-colored hair swirled in a French twist. The couches were white, the carpet was white, even the baby grand piano was white. Not only was the decor scrumptious, but the modern features and unique architectural designs made this house truly magnificent. Standing in between her two best friends, my mother, at the age of 17, leaned in close to Lyda and Joan and wistfully announced, “This is the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen.  One day, I’m gonna live in a house just like this one.” A few months later, my mother was not only enrolled at Louisiana State University, with the help of a swimming scholarship, but she also was inducted as a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. Even more unexpectedly, in 1994, my mother, prophetically, purchased a house just like the one she had admired at age 17. In fact, she purchased that very same house, where she still lives today. It’s where my heavy luggage and I will be staying for the week.

Standing outside the Shreveport Regional airport, I immediately spot her convertible silver Jaguar. Rushing over with my luggage, I whip open the car door and I am greeted with an enthusiastic, Southern-accented  “Sunshine!” (her nickname for me). Her full lips, shining with bright red lipstick, form the biggest, most beautiful smile, exposing her perfect white teeth. God, I’ve missed my mother.

Thanks to her typical Jeff Gordon race car driving techniques, we pull into my mother’s driveway about ten minutes after leaving the airport, half the time it would have taken us if she had bothered to follow the speed limit signs. But, in her estimation, life is too short for that nonsense.

While my mother fumbles in her purse for her keys, I pause a minute to observe the exterior of her understated ranch-style house with the not-so-understated bright red front door (the same color as her lipstick), with its Asian design of intricately-carved raised panels and a brass sword handle, worthy of a page in Architectural Digest. We enter her house, locked arm in arm, and I feel at home even though I’ve never lived here. Looking around my mother’s house is like reading her autobiography.  Every individual item inside of her home, even the most seemingly mundane one, seems to serve a unique purpose and has been displayed in a manner that shows it off in its best light. The compilation of all her “things” reveals who she is and how she got there, telling her life story.

Entering her foyer, I look at myself in the gold Thai mirror. I fluff my messy hair and slap some lipstick on my lips so as not to disappoint my mother and have her fuss at me. After “fixin’” myself, I nearly trip over the individual red brick that sits, separately, on the floor next to the planter and directly under the mirror where I’m standing. This brick was part of the 1924 main building of Minden High School (MHS), the school from which both my mother and father graduated, before it was razed in 2005. At MHS, my mother was a cheerleader, a competitive backstroke and synchronized swimmer who went to the junior Olympics,  a solid B+ student (who won the history award, but only because my father basically wrote it for her), a home economics award recipient (which is hilarious to me since she is not a cook and is one of the least domestic people I know!) and a frequent beauty queen contestant (often placing in the top three) whose talent was singing and whose beautiful gowns were handmade out of dyed parachute silk by her mother (but who always longed for a “store bought” gown that her family couldn’t afford). Just 15 years older than my mother, that lone red brick, a former integral part of MHS, has faded some in color, but is as strong and resilient as it ever was despite numerous hurricanes and storms. Even a razing couldn’t make this brick crumble. Just like my mother.

“I’ve got some Sauvignon Blanc, Arnold Palmer tea, and diet coke. Or I could make us some cosmos. Waddya want?,” my mother hollers from her kitchen.  I walk in the direction of her voice,  past the long mauve-colored kitchen counter covered in framed photos of family and friends.  There’s a photo of Mom and Lea, a handsome man who was her “significant other” of 13 years and who “gave me away” at my wedding.  Lea died about 30 years ago at the age of 50-something following a botched routine sinus operation.

There’s also a photo of BJ, my mother’s late best friend; BJ was instrumental in helping my mom navigate the loss of my father, a professional basketball player who, in 1971, died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 33 just six days before Christmas and 10 days before my 10th birthday. My younger brother, Jamie, had just turned six.

A framed photo of the marvelous Maude also has a prominent position on the “kitchen counter of fame.” Maude, a housekeeper who became family, came to us when Mom married Ed (after my father died and before Lea came into the picture). Maude had worked for Ed for years before Mom and he married, but chose to stay with my mom, Jamie, and me after Ed filed for divorce and left my mother after seven years of marriage. Ed ended up marrying a younger, tacky gal who was not nearly in the same class as my mother, but who put him on the proverbial pedestal – until she didn’t. They deserved each other, and my mother was better for his departure, eventually finding true love with Lea, who recognized her for the queen she is.

I glance over at the rest of the 40 or so other faded photos of my daughters and husband, my brother and his family, my aunt, my cousins, and many other loved family members and friends, and then finally responded to my mother: “I’ll take a big glass of Sauvignon Blanc with some ice please.” (While that may sound a bit de classe, I learned from Lea, a Tastevin  member, that ice in white wine, in fact, is  acceptable. So there.)

As my mother pours wine into our glasses, I study the oil painting of my mother’s “Monday lunch bunch” friends of 50-plus years that one of the members had painted. The artist somehow managed to capture each person’s individuality while still showing their connectedness as lifelong friends. I’ve always loved that painting. I then turned my gaze to the other side of the kitchen where a leopard print apron hangs on the oven door and displays a slogan that reads “The Bitch Can Cook.” Wrong. She can’t cook, but she tries. And that counts for something. Nearby, a draped kitchen towel reads “I choose my friends how I like my cocktails…strong, fabulous, and with a twist.”

Now, that is dead accurate.

My mother hands me my giant glass of happiness and we saunter with our wine past the framed print that reads “I think I’ll just be happy today.”  We continue past the magic-marker abstract drawing I drew when I was in high school that I titled “A Beautiful Mind,” the framed poem that Mom’s friend, Sylvia, wrote for her 80th birthday, and a sketch portrait of my late, famous father that my oldest daughter drew of him at age eight.  These treasures surround the cracked black leather chair in the middle of the kitchen,  where my mother spends hours each day watching The Today Show, Fox news (or any news), Judge Judy (which she claims helps her vent any rage she is suppressing), Below Deck (which allows her to travel vicariously and ogle at the handsome deck hands), and Southern Charm (as if she doesn’t get enough of that in her day-to-day life).

We take our truth serum into the den and sit on the comfy couches that face the back of the house. The entire wall is floor-to-ceiling sliding glass windows that look out onto my mother’s beautiful backyard with a koi pond, waterfall, and a resin statue of a carefree young girl jumping rope.  It’s an ideal place to sit and watch sunrises. The narrow skylight above also makes it a perfect place to sit and listen to the rain. In the corner, a bridge table stays set up beckoning any willing bridge player to try to best my competitive mom. We sit and sip for a while and, with each sip, we become smarter and smarter. I turn and ask my mother, “If a movie were made about you, what would it be called and which actress would you choose to play you in the movie?” Without hesitation, she responds, “My movie would be called Never a Dull Moment and it would star someone gorgeous and glamorous.”  (This makes me snicker inside, but I suppress a laugh.) My mom thinks about it a little more and then adds, “I think I’d like Michelle Pfeiffer to play me in my movie.” I share that my movie would be called Counting by Tens and would star Sally Fields. She releases a long “Hmm,” that suggests she’s not impressed by my statement, but chooses not to comment.

For my next question, I ask her what she feels is her best personality trait. She tells me that she doesn’t want to respond as she feels like she’s bragging. I assure her that she’s not bragging, and that I’m really curious to know what she thinks. Somewhat reluctantly, she gives in and tells me that she considers her best asset to be that she is kind and caring. Yes, she nails it. I then ask her what she sees as her worst characteristic, and she responds that she is very judgemental. She nails it again. She then throws the same two questions back my way. I knew that was coming. I hate when she does that. I tell her that I also feel my best asset is that I’m caring and kind and that my worst also is that I’m judgemental. Mom agrees that we have the same best asset, but tells me that she thinks my worst asset is that I see too much gray and never anything as black or white. She says, “If someone intentionally kills someone, that’s murder. It’s black and white; there’s no room for gray there.” I agree (and remind her that I am a former federal prosecutor), but tell her also that even folks who commit murder do so under different circumstances, some more egregious than others. I also point out that she is now judging me for not being judgmental enough, and that she wins. We both laugh and then she adds, “Well, you can just kiss my grits!” I am especially delighted to watch her unabashedly throw her head back and let out that infectious belly laugh that I’ve been longing to hear. Man, I’ve missed that laugh.

Mom takes our empty wine glasses back into the kitchen, while I continue to look around at her display of life treasures. Next to me on the end table are more family photos, including one of my favorite photos from my wedding. I reminisce about how everything was so perfect for my wedding, thanks largely to my mother who hired the top florist, an incredible band from New Orleans, and the best caterer in town. She also invited practically everyone she knew (and maybe some she didn’t know?) to comprise the almost 500 invited guests. It’s not that she has or had unlimited funds, but it was important to her to include all those folks who had been there for her in her various times of need. So, I suppose, my wedding was kind of a “thank you” to her friends, as much as it was to celebrate my marriage. I was living in Washington, D.C. at the time and just kind of showed up. I was happy to go along with what she selected, as I knew that whatever she chose would be far more incredible than anything I would allow myself to select. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she still occasionally slips up and talks about “my wedding” referring back to herself.

My mother is taking her sweet time in the kitchen, which seems a bit odd. I know she’s not preparing to serve dinner since we both decided to skip it after having eaten late lunches. Instead, I figure that she’s probably just sneaking in a couple of chocolate chip cookies and might not want me to know. So, rather, than go join her, I get up and wander towards the living room, which is just on the other side of the huge open area behind the den where we’ve been seated. This room is somewhat magical. It has a huge mirror from floor to ceiling that surrounds the fireplace. Looking into the mirror, one can see the reflection of the gorgeous backyard with the koi pond and gives the optical illusion that one is looking into another gorgeous yard beyond the living room, rather than the actual reflection.

Finally, I hear my mother start the dishwasher and begin clicking off lights in the kitchen. She opens the side door to take out the garbage, and I catch a glimpse of the back side of the door with her taped-on shooting-range silhouette of a person with several bullet holes in it, including a couple of bull’s eyes. (She leaves it on her door to warn potential burglars that she has a gun and knows how to use it.) I move towards the dining room to join her in shutting things down, and I catch my reflection in yet another huge wall mirror. There really are a lot of mirrors in this house.  Turning to the left, I look at the life-size portrait of my mother at age 42 and consider whether we really do resemble one another as some have said. While I don’t really see it, I’d like to think that we do. In her portrait, she’s wearing a long, elegant white dress, my dress that I had worn to prom, which was held in our backyard during the era she was married to Ed. I ponder whether she also thinks it’s a compliment when others suggest that we look alike.

With the alarm set and lights turned off in the front part of the house, we head back to her bedroom where we both will climb into her king-size bed to watch a movie. While my mom walks ahead of me, I linger in the long hallway to look at a 3’x5’ framed black-and-white photo of my dad in his Detroit Pistons basketball uniform, and I say a silent prayer. I enter my mom’s bedroom and turn into her dressing area where she is sitting and taking off her makeup at her movie-star dressing room table. The mirrored table has a matching wall mirror that is surrounded with light bulbs all around its edges, something I imagine Elizabeth Taylor might have used. On the dressing table itself, I count about 30 tubes of lipstick in every existing shade of red (Mom’s favorite color) neatly fitted into what typically is used to store gun ammunition. I skim the designer labels of the numerous creams and perfumes she has displayed. They’re not just for show though. She always says that life is too short not to use the good china, the fancy silver, and the French perfumes and creams.

On her floor, I notice what appears to be a black Spanx bodysuit. I raise my eyebrows and point it out to my mom, who professes “no, I was not swimming!” We both laugh, remembering the time she decided to take up swimming again and rushed to the YMCA to join a master’s swim class. When she got home, she removed her wet swimsuit only to realize that she had mistakenly worn her Spanx bodysuit, instead of her black one-piece. While that was a good “Jennyism,” as we call her hilarious antics, my all-time favorite still is the time the brakes of her T-bird failed.  She pumped the brakes, but nothing happened, so she hopped the curb hoping that might help. The car slowed a bit, but continued rolling towards the glass side of a gas station where two attendants sat on either side of a cigarette machine. The car crashed through the glass, knocking over the cigarette machine, and stopping in between the men who were now standing. One of the men walked over to the driver’s window and looked at my mother like she must be a lunatic. My mother casually rolled down her window, looked at the man, and said, “Fill ‘er up!” Have I mentioned how much I love this woman?!

With the bedroom lights finally out and the two of us tucked into my mother’s king bed, I can no longer see the treasured mementos and collections of my mother’s life. I can no longer look into the large mirrors throughout her house that reflect a life of someone who has lived and loved fully, boldly, and joyfully. So, I close my eyes and lie quietly next to my mother. I think about how my mother has always been my central guidepost and most influential person in my life. I think about how she knows me like no one else and, I dare say, I know her better than anyone else. I think about how we finish each other’s sentences and we can feel how the other is doing without a spoken word despite the miles between us. I think about how we simultaneously are writing our closely-intertwined autobiographies, although I write with a pen that I move across paper, while my mother writes with meaningful objects she carefully places in her home. Finally, I think about how lucky I am, and I close my eyes and say a little prayer, thanking God that my mother’s autobiography is not yet finished.

July 2024
Virginia, USA