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Mama's Bank Account

Wasted-Effort

Published: Dec 9, 2020

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christmas

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Mama's Bank Account:

My mother filed for Social Security Disability when she was fifty two because she was unable to work due to more than thirty years smoking cigarettes and a recent bout with pneumonia from which she would never fully recover and, both of which would lead to her death, eight years later at the age of sixty.

Money was always tight in our house, even at that point when our family of five children had been now reduced to just my mother and I since my three sisters and brother had all

married and moved out, still, my mother's meager weekly pay barely paid the rent and put food on the table let alone allow for luxuries such as Christmas gifts.

But this Christmas would be different.

That was the year my mother received her first Social Security check.

I've always remembered my mother calling me over after she opened the envelope of that first check, she wanted me to see and possibly confirm the amount printed there.

As my mother held the check I looked over her shoulder and saw "Pay to the order...$1,200.00" Twelve hundred dollars which in 1970s money is about $8000.00 today.

My mother was obviously shocked and of course I had never seen so much money.

Even to this day I can still sense my mother's relief and joy at holding so much money or rather what represented so much money in her hand.

That check led to a few firsts for my mother, one of which was to open a bank account where the check was deposited.

She'd never had an account before because she never had enough money to bother putting in the bank and because what little money she did earn went out to it's various recipients as soon as she received it.

The next first for my mother was to buy gifts, gifts for everyone in her family, her five children and their spouses and all of their children. These were not to be grand gifts, it was only $1,200.00, anyway, the Pic-N- Save where all the gifts came from didn't deal in "Grand gifts."

To keep her plans a surprise for the family my mother appointed me as her proxy shopper because she was physically unable to walk around a store for any length of time.

I can't recall exactly how much money she handed me put it couldn't have been much more than $100.

And so I set off to the store, money in pocket with no more instruction than

"If you see something you think ___ might like get it."

I was a ten year old boy so, honestly most of these gifts were not very inspired but, as they say, it's the thought that counts and the thought, my mother's thought, was to be able to give to her family, to for once not just be given to but to finally provide. It must have given her a great sense of pride.

The next first for my mother was something of a gift to herself.

For most of her adult life and for all of mine she, and we her children had lived in rented, 'furnished' apartments and these apartments were not furnished with new furniture, rather, most of it was decades old and much used, even the beds.

And so, my mother made the biggest purchases of her life: From "Dyke's appliances" in Springfield she bought

1 sofa and matching chair.

1 small kitchen dinette set

and 1 full size mattress and box spring.

All bought on time at $10 monthly payments (which I had to walk down to

the store and hand to Mrs. Dyke myself)

These were not the best by any standards, I seem to recall my mother got the lot for around $250. The sofa and chair were covered in "velveteen" which rubbed off over time leaving the arms threadbare and the dinette's chairs always wobbled and I imagine the mattress was not the most comfortable, but they were her's. All brand new, not used up cast offs from strangers, especially the mattress.

Imagine, for the first time in your life laying down to sleep in a bed where no one else, especially

a stranger had ever been before you.

The money that check provided didn't last very long and soon the bank checking account lay dormant with the monthly SS checks cashed and bills payed in cash but my mother

did have her own furniture until the end of her life, her short life, and all of the gifts to her family are long gone, none of them being any real keepsakes, but memory of that

year, that one Christmas has stayed with me.

That, is my mother's gift to me.

Image size

2042x1488px 1.11 MB

Date Taken

Dec 9, 2020, 1:03:04 PM