Valleri Lura LaGasse
One of the things of which I am most glad in my life was telling my mother that I hoped I would be as good a mother as she was. She was born to be a gateway for children (there were 8 of us) and to nurture them into adulthood. From her I learned to listen, not just with my ears, but with my heart and my wisdom. From her I learned about timing. She was a savant about people – she could tell a con a mile away. After ignoring her comments about people, to my detriment, I learned to heed her advice.
When my parents met, during World War II, Valleri was a chemist, testing warheads in one of Howard Hughes' foundries. She was tall – 5' 10" – with one of those statuesque bodies that a Playboy Bunny would envy. She had been one of the Beauties of Southern Methodist University – where she eschewed the fraternity/sorority cliques, which she regarded with amused indifference. She had had a privileged childhood financially, but she and her younger brother were sent to boarding school, when her mother remarried. Her father was a Frenchman – a 6' 5" red-headed charmer, who disappeared from her life when she was 12 years old. Her mother was a red-headed spitfire, teacher, trend-setter, and one who defied the cultural norms. She had been closer to her father, than to her mother.
Somehow, through all the twists, turns, and demands of growing up, she never lost her internal guidance. She brought me into the world, the first of eight children, in a time of uncertainty and shortages, right before the end of WWII. She took to mothering, like she took to cooking. Never having experience with either before her marriage, she became expert at both.
One of the stories she told me was the time when, going through the receiving line at church, and the minister, pointing to two diaper pins threaded through her lapel, said, "I see you're wearing your badge of office." She was down-to-earth, had a ribald sense of humor that sneaked out every once in a while, shocking others who were more used to her seemingly traditional mein. She was not traditional. She was Real. She and about 12 other women met once a week for over 20 years, Wednesday Night Book Club, to discuss/argue classical and modern literature, philosophies, trends, and personal issues. They were the original consciousness-raising group.
She died in 1985. I still miss her. I miss the comfort of being with her – the comfort that comes from knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am loved, just as I am – fully, whole-heartedly, without reservation.
