Gayle Price Pentoney

My beautiful mother was born a Texan in 1928. She was in high school during World War II, and she was a very modern woman. She attended SMU (Southern Methodist University) for awhile, but ended up working as the secretary for a rich oil man. She shared an apartment in Dallas with her friend Irene and didn't marry my dad until she was 26. She was engaged to someone else when she met him. His movie star good looks and California lifestyle swept her off her feet and they married not long after they met. She went from Dallas to living at the beach in San Diego in a heartbeat. They eloped, and she had to go back to Dallas to break up with her fiance after she was married!

Mom should have finished college and had a career. She was fiercely intelligent, had a quick wit and a wickedly funny sense of humor. She made friends easily and quickly and her heart was infinite. Growing up, our friends always wanted to hang out at our house because mom was so cool. Mom and dad took our friends into their home and hearts and unofficially adopted some of them, especially those who lost a parent. Mom's daddy died when she was little, and she always reached out to anyone who suffered a similar fate. Jennie, Chris, and Tommy are our unofficial siblings. My friends Carrie and Pam both lived with us at different times, and so did Tommy. Many of our friends would show up at Dolbeer St when we weren't home, to spend time with mom. When she moved to San Clemente, she joined the Women's Club and the Friends of the library. Soon she knew everyone in town, had scores of friends, and was running the used bookstore that was helping to fund the library. She started the hugely successful buck-a-bag sale on Sundays during the Farmer's Market. After dad had the stroke, she ran his office for about a year. She was his main secretary already, and there were lawyer friends of theirs who helped when something involved an appearance. Dad was a workman's comp lawyer so much of the work involved getting people into see doctors and into retraining programs. Anyway, dad was always more interested in fly-fishing than anything else, and he never pressed clients for payment. The year mom took over she made a lot more money than he ever had.

The heat was in pipes of hot water than ran underneath the floor on Dolbeer St. At night when mom would cook dinner, I would lie on the warm kitchen floor and talk to her. She would have to step over me as she moved from the sink to the stove. It must have been annoying, but she never told me to get lost or complained. She patiently talked to me as she cooked around me. Now I feel rather guilty that I didn't get off my backside and help her. The kitchen floor and early mornings at the ranch are my favorite memories of her. Mom and I always got up earlier than David and Joyce and usually dad, or else he would be gone fishing. When we were at the ranch we would walk out onto the bridge, mom with a steaming cup of coffee. We'd stand while, looking down into the crystal clear water at the fish swimming below. Then we'd walk across the bridge and sit on the rocks above the river on the other side, still watching the fish and talking quietly. I loved having her to myself, before the day began and everyone else was up.

She gave me my love of reading, and it was something we always shared. She introduced me to Shakespeare long before I encountered him in School. She took me to plays at College of the Redwoods often. She loved poetry and wrote her own as well as reading it. Many of her favorite things became mine and shaped my life. I never rebelled against her or went through a period when I thought I knew more than she did like most teenage girls do. I always knew she was special, she was wise, and she was wonderful. When I looked around I realized that everyone loved her. She kept friends for life and she was constantly making new ones.

When mom was still living in California, I called her every day. If I had a question about something, I tended to go to her first. I went to her first to celebrate my accomplishments and to read her my poetry. I went to see her monthly and we spent every Mother's Day together from the time she moved to San Clemente until she moved to Hawaii, and later Tahiti, with Joyce. Joyce was even in town one Mother's Day and all three of us went to brunch at the Country Club in San Clemente.

By the end of her life mom was tiny. She was shorter than me and I could wrap my arms around her almost twice. I was able to go see her three times during her last year. David, Cate and I went in August of 2009. David and I went back during my spring break 2010 and I went back alone after school got out and stayed a month. Although she was suffering from vascular dementia, her eyes still sparkled a bright, beautiful blue and she was lucid during the daytime and still wickedly funny.

I don't claim to know exactly what happens to us after we die, but I know it isn't the end. I have felt both of my parents with me since they passed, at various times. I talk to them both and I feel that they know this. It's not the same, of course, but it comforts me.

I started this yesterday, for Mother's Day, but felt bad and ended up sleeping most of the day and night. So, Mom, this is for you. Happy Mother's Day. I hope you spent it fly-fishing with dad in a heavenly stream.

I love you.

Namaste,
Jill