My mom was the only woman I knew who washed her hair in the kitchen sink. Well, the little hair that she had. This wasn’t a product of aging but rather poor genetics. As a child, she was told that if she cut it short, it would grow back thicker. In every photo of my mother, her hair is short and styled. 

Bent forward at the waist, chin tucked in, and hair pulling to the crown, she shampooed and conditioned her hair most mornings. Never a shower. She did bathe, thankfully, but only at night, where she’d warm her body until it reached a normal person’s 98.6 temperature. She once told me she stopped taking showers after watching Hitchcock’s, Psycho. This was actually a phenomenon, thousands of people discontinuing showers because of a fear of what’s on the other side of the curtain.

I also remember her highlighting her hair with a home kit. I don’t think they sell them anymore, but inside the kit was hair color, a cap with little holes all over, and a knitting needle with a hook. You’d put on the cap, and pull strands of hair out through the holes with the long needle. Then you’d add color to the bits of hair outside the cap. Sometimes I’d walk into the bathroom while she was in the midst of her hair treatment, cap on and hair sticking out. She’d make funny faces while I peed in the toilet. We had one bathroom for all three of us: my mom, brother and me.

Onto phobias, there were a few of those in her younger years; so afraid of the telephone that she had a terrible time speaking to relatives when they called. Not that she had many of those. She was an only child born to two only children. Calls from relatives were rare, which, on the bright side, helped decrease phone time. Also, elevators. She was afraid of those too. When she was a child, her father started working for an insurance company. Part of his job entailed elevator inspection. He had to ride outside and on top of elevators to make sure everything was running smoothly. Apparently, this thought alone terrified little Judie so much that for years she chose the stairs instead. My mom’s name was Judie. There was only one elevator in my mom’s home town of Benton, Illinois and it was in a 4-story building. 

Benton’s claim to fame is that George Harrison visited once. His sister lived there for a while and just before the Beatles hit fame, George took a vacation to Benton, Illinois. The town commemorates this 2-week vacation with a George Harrison mural, titled, “George Harrison comes to Benton – 1963.” 

My mom and her parents were lucky enough to have a house in town and at the lake, which was 30 minutes outside of town by car. Everyone went to the lake in the hottest months of summer. As a child my mom brought me to Benton to visit my grandfather. I remember miles of corn, swimming all day in the lake, feeding the geese stale bread, fireflies (we don’t have those in CA) and sleeping in the screened-in porch, the sound of crickets lulling me to sleep. Mom told me that in her childhood, friends of her parents would arrive unannounced by motor boat on any given night with cold beer and be fed dinner. That’s how my grandparents and their friends socialized. They laughed a lot. 

She did have an imagination. And tenacity. A young person can make great strides with those two qualities swirling around in their veins. They could make a lower-middle class teen in the 1950s escape her 7000-person town in Southern Illinois to become, you guessed it, an actress in Hollywood. That she did. 

She studied theater in college and then completed her Master’s in theater and history. But when she knew she had to give acting a real try, she and my father moved to Hollywood. In 1975 they moved into an apartment building on Fuller Ave where their fit Italian neighbor was also trying to make it in the movies. He was writing the script Rocky which would soon give him an Oscar win. 

Mom went on to perform in small theaters in Los Angeles. She landed parts in The Fall Guy and Lou Grant. She landed a day-player role in Happy Days. I was a baby by then and she brought me to the set. As the story goes, the director was having quite a day and picking on my mom. Ron Howard came up to her and gave her some words of solace. He told her not to worry and that she was doing just fine. She then relaxed and was able to finish the day of shooting. Later, my mom wrote Mr. Howard a letter of appreciation. She knew he was just beginning a new career and wrote that he would make an excellent director. 

Her acting career was cut short when her marriage disolved. She was pregnant with my brother and I was four years old. It’s amazing what people will do when you’re at your lowest. A family in my school gave her $50 a month for a full year. She received a monthly stipend from the Actor’s Fund. She had purchased the duplex we lived in with my father and rent from the other half paid the mortgage. We scraped by and I know she counted every penny in those early years.  

It was rough. My mom had no other family aside from her father back in Benton. She was really alone. 

When my brother was born, she was cast in a pilot for a new NBC show. She told herself that if the pilot was picked up, she would continue acting because she would have a paying job. As these things tend to go, the pilot wasn’t green-lit and she had no income.

The medical industry was a stable field and she was soon interviewed by Ayerst Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company. Her years of auditioning equipped her for the interview process which was lengthy. When she was called in for the final interview with the west coast manager, he asked, “how do I know you won’t quit once you get your next acting job? I don’t believe people can make such a big career pivot.” It was the early 1980s and Reagan was president. People still stayed not only in the same industry, but the same company their entire careers. My mom was in her early 40s, raising two kids, with no prior sales or pharmaceutical experience. But she had an imagination and tenacity. She knew our lives depended on this job. Her reply, “Ronald Reagan did it.” She was hired. 

She went on to work for Ayerst and then Wyeth-Ayerst when they merged, for the next 25 years. She was the first woman to wear pant suits when she was told, “not to show so much of her legs,” due to the length of her skirts. I think every doctor’s office that she entered brought out the actress in her. She played the part of “pharmaceutical representative” and she played it well. 

When she went to work full time, she hired a caretaker for us. Emma was 19 and had just arrived from El Salvadore. She was looking for work and a place to live. My mom said that she was the only candidate who went over to play with my brother and me during the interview process. Both units in the duplex had two bedrooms so Emma’s bed was in our main living space. My mom always said, “Emma, you’re not sleeping in the dining room. We are just eating in your room.” 

Emma spoke very little English and my mom spoke very little Spanish but they had a beautiful friendship, two women persevering in their lives and trying to make the best of it. 

After school Emma took care of us. But the three of us always had outings on the weekends: ice skating, lunch at Ed Debevics, minature golf. In the summer it would get so hot in our duplex that she would make a picnic of barbecued chicken, potato salad and corn (her midwestern roots) and we’d have an early dinner in the park. When it was hot enough, we would picnic on a weeknight. I thought it so special. She’d always bring an ice cream popsicle for dessert. My brother and I would play on the playground and then we’d eat our chicken dinner as the sun went down. 

She made everyday experiences special. It was me she would take on date nights: Kate Mantellini’s where we would dine on asparagus topped with hollandaise and oysters. Followed by a screening at the SAG theater where we would watch the latest release among industry actors. I was ten. We’d pretend that I was the required age of twelve. I had to be on my best behavior because twelve was nearly a teenager. I remember watching The Accidental Tourist, Little Shop of Horrors and my favorite film, Men Don’t Leave with Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates. We’d always discuss the film after. 

Some people resent moving into a spousal role at an early age, but I liked it. I felt grown-up and valued for my opinion. My mom considered my wants and needs as she would a spouse. Not that I was a spouse, I was still her child and I imagine, as a mother now with a daughter of my own, that it was exhausting and isolating to be a single mom in the middle of Los Angeles with young children. But she made it work all while making it feel special. 

I mostly remember being together, her holding me so tight, and feeling so much love. I still feel that love. Not only did she give me her love, she gave me the feeling of love. There’s not a moment that goes by that I don’t feel loved. We didn’t have a big house. But where a small duplex lacks space, it makes up in intimacy. The three of us being together. Mom washing her hair in the kitchen or dying it in the single bathroom. Emma’s bed, always neatly made up in the dining room. Dinners at the park during sunset, the slight breeze cooling us from the summer’s day. Her sharp wit and ability to laugh at herself. 

I love you mom. I will miss you so much.