Photos of my mom and Sean Ritter who killed himself 11 years ago.

How beautiful my mother looks in this photo with her new fiery redhead granddaughter Tiffany, and her son Sean, who ended his life 11 years ago, today, rather than face a draconian 3 strikes prison system. He went to prison at 21, on two counts of drug possession charges. He got into a fight in a parking lot, thus breaking his parole, so he went home and shot himself in his garage rather than return to Pelican Bay.

Sean was my half-brother, but raised as a cousin as my childless aunt Toddy who desperately wanted children and couldn't have any, or so she thought. After she adopted Sean, she had three kids of her own. Sean's father was a Dublin man, that's all we know. Somebody my mother met at the No Name Bar in Sausalito. Perhaps he was a sailor, a carpenter, or someone just passing through. He must've been a redhead or a strawberry blond like Sean. My mother never saw him again, but I'm sure she was reminded of him every time she saw Sean. Is the father still alive somewhere in Dublin, we wonder. What was his name? Who were his people? Did he ever know he had a son in America?

In the photo, my mother has no breasts, a cancer survivor, the implants will leak and bring back the cancer, it will grow undetected behind that wall of silicone. She will die of a heart attack after her first round of chemo October 23, 1994. This month is such a melancholy time for me, as my grandmother, and mother also died during the final days of October, also the end of the Celtic year. My grandmother died Oct 28, not quite Samhain, Summer's End, but close enough for the transition when the door to the Otherworld opens. Half way between the equinox, my mother's birthday, to the solstice, Samhain is the beginning of winter, or the dark half of the year. We will light a bonefire for them so that they may see the way forward.

My mom, Maureen Reilly, sister Kathleen (Toddy) Ritter, sons Myles, Sean, baby Tiffany & Judy Ritter.

What's in a Nickname?

Remembering my childhood name, my cousin Dave posted this photo on my Facebook Wall.

I replied: I am The Baba! It was a name I kept well hidden from my classmates, because they teased me and sang the nursery rhyme.

Baa baa black sheep have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.
One for the master, one for the dame,
One for the little boy who lives down the lane...  

Aside from the fact that I endlessly puzzled over the identity of the little boy who lived down the lane and and wondered why did he need a big bag of black wool? What use was it to him? I'm sure he would've much rather have had coin, or chocolate or a toy sailboat. Besides, I didn't like being compared to a sheep. All that baaa-ing about. I figured out early on I was the black sheep. Trust me, I didn't trust Mother Goose either.

Who knew the nursery rhyme was a complaint against the the Great Wool Tax of 1275? Or that the master who was the evil Plantagenet King—Edward Longshanks, at that, the dame was the greedy church, or that the wool-sack itself was a symbol of power of the Lord Chancellor?

Now do the math—66% went to Church and State, and 33% went to the sheepherder. And if it was black wool, it was more valuable, as it didn't need to be dyed, therefore subject to higher taxation. No wonder there was a rebellion. And now the rhyme has been blacklisted for being politically incorrect. Talk about dyed in the wool. But I digress.

Then there's the meaning of teacher as in a monastic siddha leader, or father. Baba Muktananda, or Neem Karoli Baba. You can imagine what confusion that caused me during the dawn of the New Age.  By 1970 there were more babas out there than I could count. A swami from Miami? No, Marin.

Since one didn't have to be a believer or profess anything to be a follower of Baba, I followed myself. I had no mother, she was off joining communes, and no father either. By that time my own father had slipped truly, madly, deeply into the deep well of Seagram's. None of this I only drink what's in the neck stuff. His middle name was DUI.

I was a self-raised swami baby. Baba means baby in Irish. I was the first grandchild. My grandparents called me Baba.We were a multi-generational family under one roof. Halcyon days. Then my grandfather died. Hell arrived with its hand-basket of tithes. My grannie sold the house and moved to the country with me in tow. And she grieved. That's how I was raised as Baba, wagging my tail behind me.

Now it's a sharp nostalgic sensation, a whiplash to the past when someone calls me Baba now, as it's such an old name, known only by family and close friends. But it is the only name I answered to for ages.

Maureen usually meant I was in deep trouble. Or at school. Or both. At the same time. Guess that's why I grew to like the nickname Mo... A name where I was not in trouble, or about to get into trouble, or be called on for the right answer in class that I didn't know, or did know, but was too shy to answer. So much pain associated with a given name, my mother's name, she who was crazy and unpredictable right up to the very end. Enough to drive one to drink. Did I mention I'm allergic to wool?

• NOTE: THIS POST ALONG WITH 12 OTHER POSTS WAS ERRONEOUSLY REMOVED BY BLOGGER FOR VIOLATING COMMUNITY STANDARDS ON 5/14/21. It was reinstated as a draft the next day. I am still pissed off.

AUTUMN EQUINOX

AUTUMN EQUINOX

for Maureen Reilly, my mother, AKA Kellé Green

September 21, 1932 — October 23, 1994

Come home to die, she did, like a stray cat.
We didn't listen, we didn't believe
for she'd cried "wolf" so many times.
We never knew what was real.
Nor did she, as she howled in concrete canyons
traversing the City like a gypsy in her ragged clothes,
pawn silver and turquoise half-hidden by a wild red mane.

She knew Market Street doorways,
she who could walk the Tenderloin unafraid,
she was a white angel among the downtrodden,
the homeless and the indigent. She brought them
clean needles and clothes. Fresh cardboard.
And if they needed warm food she pawned her jewelry.
Come Welfare Monday, her hands were again heavy with silver.

She, who had so many homes: transient
hotel rooms, holding tanks, state mental wards,
at one time or another, every place was home.
But she came home, at last, she came home to us
to the gentle folds of the western hills, to where the heart is.

This woman who we called Mother,
she came home to die and even then we didn't believe
her heart was too big for this world. We didn't believe her.
We never said goodbye and then it was too late.
The floor leapt up to cradle her silent heart.

Mama come back, it's your birthday
I'll hide the needles, the pills, the pills,
pretend I didn't see the blackened half-spoon.
Come back, be my Mommy, just for a day.
It's your birthday, the Autumn equinox.
As they traipse along the pavements gray
the fallen leaves are whispering your name.
Come dance. Come and dance with the wind.

Walker Creek, CA

Journal entry, 4/7/98, continued, my mother’s marriage certificate, tax woes

4/7/1998  I fell asleep sometime after 8 PM and awoke at 10:30 with the TV blaring, some lame squawk show, so I turned off the lights and went back to sleep—only to awaken again at 6:30 in the morning. I dozed until 7:30 AM, my first full night’s sleep since I left Niel’s place in February. For lent I gave up sleep? I don’t think so. I awoke with erotic thoughts of Neil and wondering if I jumped his bones if that would’ve made any difference, or would he have rejected me anyway?

Yesterday my mother‘s marriage certificate arrived in the mail and I had to laugh, she told me they were married sometime in February or March 1952, this after telling me I was born at eight months, or I was a love child. But the date was June 29th! Practically July—and I was born in November. Talk about being on the way. I was not an eight-month baby but a five-month baby. Right? She said I was the only child she carried full-term most likely because I was conceived in March. Whose wedding Was it, I wonder?

Neil called, wanting to know about Walt Whitman! and I gave some pointers on what to look for: free verse, his was the first truly American poetic form, etc. Then he asked me if I I plan to file my taxes and we got into an imbroglio—I become sullen and quiet. 

He prods me, asking if I choose to pack around this pain and suffering. I accuse him of abandoning me, not making the time to help me. I felt betrayed, and that he didn’t listen to me. What I needed was someone to physically walk me through the process, to hold my hand. He said he would as soon as school was out, but this year he wouldn’t be able to help me at all. I’m angry because he didn’t help me when he said he would, and now there was no time for me. I am not a high priority. How He worked his way out of that promise saying he’d help me, when all he did was to drive me to Office Depot to pick up some files and ledgers. That’s not supporting me,  or is it going over the process so I understand what I’m supposed to be doing.