Bob Dylan, "man in the long black coat":

There are no mistakes in life some people say
It is true sometimes you can see it that way
But people don't live or die people just float
She went with the man in the long black coat.

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My mother, Eleanor Mae (Yule) Emmerling, would have been 85 today.

She lived to be 77 and one half years…died September 21^st, 2004, the last day of summer. Mother loved the summer. My sister L. reminded us of this at her funeral, where anyone who wanted to talk could say something. And! We could play music.  My sister S played a Warren Zevon song about death & how to remember him after he was gone. I played a Dylan song. Even though Mom had an ambivalent relationship to the Bard: 20 years of Dylan screeching and sneering and moaning and groaning, out of my bedroom finally wore her down to an appreciation of some of his songs.

(When Dylan almost died in the late 90’s, at the same time revivifying his career with “Love and Theft”, Mom put on a very sad face and said, “oh I would miss him so much, James Mark.” Mom had a soft blueblood new England way with savage irony…)

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My sister L, my best gal pal in the world forever and always, rolled up in her New Man’s silver truck and delivered me a care package: big jug of coffee & some canned chili & the week’s rent at my boarding house. She is my financial manager.  Very generous these days, she is, now that she is in love. I love that she is in love. I admire the New Man very much. A perfect fit for L.

We rapped a bit in our sibling way as the New Man smiled. He reminds both of us of Mom’s beloved brother, George, a kind gentle funloving soul with immense gravitas.

“Today is Mom’s birthday, you know,” L said, wincing a bit in her bubbly infatuation & energy…

“I know that!” I snapped back. This is becoming our thing: we box & wrestle emotionally, like siblings ought to.

Nothing with L. is heavy. Her head is in the f-ing stratosphere always. Worrying, planning, going over every detail simultaneously. She got that from Mom.  Sister S. is heavier: slower in speech and thought, prone to massive mood shifts . She got that from Mom.

Eleanor could be light as a feather . She loved to venture into the stratosphere. She had insomnia for the last , oh , 20 years of her life (which coincided with my mental collapse & dependence) and would lay awake listening to talk radio and playing word games in her head. Like, think of words that start with “a”. Words that rhyme with “mother”. Or: how many words could you pull out of the word : “lackadaisical”? Etc.

She loved to talk, but her husband George was not a big talker, especially after he got dementia .  This was when Mom staged what she always called “The Revolution”. She’d watched her daughters be swept up by the sexual/cultural revolution of the 60’s & 70’s, make terrible mistakes, and become …well, somewhat strangers to her. “These girls, I dunno about them,” she would mutter. 

The Revolution was her  personal marital one. She took over the finances. Dad was “incapable of handling money”. Mom wasn’t. Due to her “Scottish side”, she said. She didn’t penny-pinch; but she made you tell her the exact benefit for the family (me, Dad, her) that would accrue from any purchase whatsoever. Like, waffles. “You are too fat already, George,you don’t need those…Mother says no…and” (with a wink at me…her favorite phrase I think): “you don’t mess with Mother Nature!”

The Revolution was her realization that the 1940-50’s dream of perfect children, endless progress, marital fidelity, and , most important, a reward in the “golden years” , was simply not going to happen to her little family. She watched the news relentlessly, and spoke of cultural decay and sexual foolishness and “big mouthed people who never shut up” and , of course, “the way things used to be”, endlessly, with me.

I kept up a hip banter. Challenged her  in a humorous way. Hurt her feelings often, and was subjected to the silent treatment for punishment…. She lumped me with  my siblings’ generation, even though I came along at age 40 for her. A kind of only child, with fascinating complex grown up siblings to help me navigate the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s in a way a lot of other 40-something-ers didn’t have. They had Gen X parents. I had Gen X sisters. And a brother, the proverbial Prodigal Son who returned occasionally then disappeared again. He has currently been missing for me & his sisters for going on 6 years.

She was not pleased with Generation X’s handling of the world she tried to hand them. One of…restrained propriety mixed with occasional context-dependent letting-down-of the hair.

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I played Dylan’s “Man in the Long Black Coat “ at her funeral, after delivering a 20 minute eulogy which I completely forget, now, except for the memory that I had the crowd in the palm of my hands and delivered the goods. I love public speaking. Far more than private.

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L called me up after she saw me today.

“Jimmy! Totally forgot! Cousin N. (mother’s favorite..a doctor!) called me today. Guess what!?”

Somehow I knew exactly what she was gonna say..

“M. is pregnant! Twins! Due in September.”

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 There are no mistakes in life some people say
It is true sometimes you can see it that way
But people don't live or die people just float
She went with the man in the long black coat