What One Remembers: Mom Turns 96

Noma Sazama with her six children on her 96th birthday in front of her flower/vegetable garden.

My mom, Noma Sazama turned 96 on September 21. She lives by herself and keeps busy with her garden and her social engagements, such as bridge, “Sharp 13” (another card game), the American Legion Auxiliary and giving blood to the Red Cross.

She gives blood at monthly and calls others in town urging them to give, too. And of course, she makes weekly football picks for a pool of the NFL, organized by my nephew. This week, despite complaints there should not be spread that has to be factored into who wins or loses, she is tied for first with correct picks.

Mom starts the day with devotions and then its time for wordle, hurdle and connections.
She still drives, but only in Martin, a small town in South Dakota wedged between the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservation. Her faith is important and for her birthday this year, his wish was that all her six children would attend church with her on her birthday.

I stayed with her last week, and she insisted on making breakfast for me – because she’s my mom – and I am and will always be her child.

My third sister, Barb, lives a house over and orchestrated meals and card playing after church for the birthday. Barb also suggested that each sibling write a card about our memories of growing up and give it to mom.

I loved the idea. As I started to write the memories, I realized my memories were a reminder of how much she meant to me.

Mom was born in 1929 on a farm, just before the stock market crashed. She lived through the “dirty thirties” on a farm in South Dakota. When she was little, she remembers a large red cloud moving up from the south, and her dad, who never graduated from high school, sending them all to the root cellar (underground). It turns out the cloud was dust from Oklahoma being blown by winds. Later grasshoppers came and ate all the plants and even the paint off the buildings.

When people speak about climate change, she points out they haven’t lived long enough or studied the history of the country. (She may be proved right. A recent Energy Department report noted that “data aggregated over the continental U.S. s how no significant long-term trends in most extreme weather events. Claims of more frequent of intense hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and dryness in America aren’t supported by historical records.”)

Her father died on July 4, when as a town elder, he went to examine a town’s fireworks display that had not gone off, and it blew up in his face. Her mother went back to school and became a teacher.

My mom got her two-year teaching degree and taught in a one-room schoolhouse. At 23 she married my dad and then had me.

Our first home didn’t have indoor plumbing, and only one bedroom. My crib was in the kitchen, because it was the warmest room. I remember looking up at the light and I was visited in my bed by a mouse, who seemed to think the remains of the milk around my mouth were a good snack.

My sister was born a year later, and we were able to move into teacher housing—a one room schoolhouse that was converted to a home. A small upstairs with an attic and a long narrow living room (like a bowling alley), which meant that furniture could only fit one way and a big radio that was tuned into professional baseball games every weekend.

My mom didn’t have an automatic washer or dryer, so all kids were pretty much potty trained by a year. There were no disposable diapers.

Washing was a full day chore. You had to fill up the washing machine with water, and after the clothes sloshed around, they went through a ringer (and you had to be careful not to get fingers or hands in it or they would be broken) and into rinse water. Then clothes went back through the ringer, before they were hung outside.

One of the nicest home appliances we got was a dryer, when they were available, because you no longer had to hang sheets and other large items on the clothesline in the winter – waiting until sheets freeze dried.

We always had a large garden to supplement meals. Canning vegetables was done for food for the winter. Once when I was picking beans, my least favorite thing to do, because a garter snake liked to hang out under the plants, I started speaking with my mom.
She was going to reach the ripe old age of 35 that fall. I asked her how it felt to get “old.” She said, “I don’t really feel any older than before.”

With five kids in tow, my youngest sister wasn’t born yet, my parents both went back to summer school to complete their degrees. My dad for his master’s and my mom to complete her bachelor’s.

There was little money and at least three separate summers, we lived in a four room or smaller apartment in a college town. My mom told me they were always worried about grocery money, and one week was particularly bad. Luckily my grandma sent $20 in the mail, and they were able to buy groceries that week.

Weekly we’d go to the laundromat, wash clothes, dry and fold them. My mom always brought a textbook along to read while we were there.

She found free classes and sports that her children could do at the parks and schools, which were open in the summer for families like ours. We made many trips to the bookmobile and entered free contests. No government help, my mom and dad believed if you worked hard enough you could make it.

Hard work was a lesson we learned by watching. Parents model for their children. My mom taught us faith, charity and common sense. She taught fairness by treating us that way. She taught us compassion, and she gave us love.

When I stayed with her last week, she got up out of her chair to look for a Scrabble Board, so we could play. It took a minute to get the feet set before moving the closet to look for the game.

She told me “I think I’m getting old.”

And we all are.

It is the life we live that makes the memories.

Why do we remember? Why do we have memories? Survival. So, we don’t keep making the same mistakes again and again.

But there’s a bigger reason for memories. Love. We can relive it.

More than survival, memories are about remembering love.