Bonnie Lu Ford, June 29, 1945 - June 28, 1990

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Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 64 years old. She died in 1990, the day before her 45th birthday. I was 19 years old and I had just completed my freshman year of college at Virginia Commonwealth University. It's hard to believe that another 19 years have passed since then. This morning I woke up acutely aware that starting today I will have been living without her longer than the years I had her in my life. That's an odd thought to embrace, and I'm still letting it sink in.

It's incredible how someone so significant in your life can become a mental montage of images, moments, feelings, sounds and smells. But this is what happens. My mom brought me into this world and made an indelible mark on who I am today, but there's been so much life since her death -- college graduation, three cities, five jobs, marriage, divorce, countless firsts and lasts, losses, new beginnings, the birth of a nephew. So much. So much. So much of my life has happened without her here with me. I want the people who are in my life today to know her, my mom, Bonnie Lu Ford.

• She was born Bonnie Lu McNutt and she grew up in Cleveland with one older brother.


• She graduated from Ohio University, where she was in a sorority and where she met my dad.


• She was married to my dad for 13 years and they had two girls - my younger sister, Jill, and me.


• She was 5 foot, 4 inches, and 108 pounds.
• She had olive skin, brown eyes and dark brown hair that turned mostly gray in the last years of her life.


• She drove a Saab before anyone in Texas knew what they were. It was the color of a kidney bean and the few other drivers on the road who had Saabs usually waved at us as they passed.


• As a single, working mom raising two daughters, she pursued and earned her master's degree in marketing from North Texas State University.


• When we were growing up in Dallas, she worked in the marketing department of a national restaurant chain. Her last job was a marketing manager position for a D.C.-based, national trade association.


• She was an avid tennis player and played in tournaments when my sister and I were growing up. Her trophies were displayed among the books and knick-knacks in our living room.


• Her all-time favorite singer was James Taylor, although she listened to a lot of Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Fleetwood Mac, Julio Iglesias and Neil Diamond.


• She went to Michael Jackson's Thriller concert and brought home purple-and-black Michael Jackson bandanas for my sister and me.


• She loved pickles, root beer floats, mint chocolate chip ice cream and Fig Newtons.


• She drank original Coors.


• She liked to put peanut butter on sliced apples -- she also ate peanut butter and pickle sandwiches (a McNutt family favorite). It's actually good. I swear.


• She made simple, convenient dinners - baked chicken, pork chops, frozen pizza, fish sticks, spaghetti and tacos -- always with two sides (corn, brocolli, baked beans or rice were favorites) and a tossed iceberg lettuce salad.


• She always set salad dressing on the table - usually Wish-Bone Italian and Kraft Catalina.


• She liked liverwurst.


• She kept powdered Nestle's NesQuik and Tang in the pantry.


• She made great Christmas cookies -- especially the powdered-sugar wedding cookies that she'd shape into balls or crescent moons.


• Without her contacts or glasses, she was legally blind. I liked to wear her glasses and pretend I was walking around a fun house.
  
• Many times when leaving reminder notes for Jill and me, she would sign them "Yo Mama."


• When she was thinking hard about something, she'd pucker her lips and furrow her eyebrows.


• Her hair was very thin and fine and super soft.


• She used a pick to tease her permed curls.


• She liked to accessorize with bangles - necklaces and bracelets, mostly.


• She wore clip-on earrings.


• She had lots of tailored skirts and blazers for work.


• When she moved to Alexandria, she sometimes put on tennis shoes with her work clothes and walked to the office.


• She used Vidal Sassoon shampoo and conditioner.


• She wore Ralph Lauren perfume.


• Sometimes she would refer to Jill and me as "my goils" or "my lil' chillens."
• She bravely and generously gave my sister and I creative license with our bedrooms. In Dallas, Jill's room was lavender and I chose a color called "Bolt of Blue" (a.k.a. turquoise). When Mom moved into a renovated row house in Old Town Alexandria, Jill painted the original hardwood floors in her room pink (picture Pepto-Bismol), and I opted to paint my walls black.


• She loved Woody Allen movies.


• She thought Steve Martin's "The Jerk" was hysterical.


• She played piano and guitar.


• She didn't have much of a singing voice, but she tried.


• She liked camping and loved the American Southwest and the Colorado mountains.


• She liked the artist R.C. Gorman, and we met him once during a summer vacation to New Mexico.


• She looked great in a tennis skirt. She usually wore sweatbands on her wrists and a sun visor when she played.


• She owned a Wilson racket.


• When we were in grade school, she had a striped bikini that reminded me of Fruit Stripe Gum.


• She had a slight frame with a long neck, thin wrists, long fingers, long arms and legs. She walked with her hips slightly forward and her feet turned a bit outward.


• She wore Maybelline eyeliner in Velvet Black.


• At night she often put Mary Kay night cream on her hands and it smelled like peaches.
  
• She rarely cursed or cried, so when she did, it got your attention.


• In the late '70s and early '80s she wore her hair in a quasi-mullet, but we called it a "bi-level" and, for a time, my sister and I had one too.


• She would get really tan in the summertime.


• One of the most soothing memories I have as a little girl is of being in her lap with my head against her chest and hearing/feeling the vibration of her voice as she talked on the phone.


• When she really got to laughing she would snort, and that would make her laugh even harder.


• Not hearing the lyrics correctly, she thought the Go-Go's "Our Lips are Sealed" was "Alice the Seal."
  
• When I felt unhappy or disenchanted as a teenager (which was often), Mom would make me write down a list of all the good things and bad things in my life, and inevitably the good would outnumber the bad and I'd feel a little better.
  
• She once told me that love really is the best medicine, and I certainly believe it.