San Francisco Sentinel
May 10, 1990
Street Talk
My Mother, Mildred
By Doris Fish
Sentinel Arts Writer
My mother, Mildred, and Marilyn Monroe shared a birthday, though Mil is three years older. They also shared a slight physical resemblance which I inherited to an uncanny degree. Unfortunately, Marilyn died, and Mildred married my father, became a Catholic, had six “wonderful kids” and happily lost any resemblance to a movie star in and ever-growing pile of nappies.
One of my best jokes is “My mother’s name is Mildred”. Just saying that seems to strike a particular chord for uproarious hilarity. One expects someone called Mildred to be an object of mirth, and my mother lives up to that expectation.
We call her Mil or Millie (I have a friend who calls her Dred.) She now weighs about 200 pounds and is under 5’2”. After going bald last year, her hair has come back curly. She looks just like a giant, old Shirley Temple doll.
Not one to waste time on housework, she is constantly embarking on new endeavors, while the rambling family home defies gravity and refuses to crumble. Her latest project is as a volunteer caregiver for AIDS patients in Sydney. Ironically, and through no fault of hers, her first client died two hours after she administered her first (his last) morphine injection. “I was a little offended,” she said, “when his boyfriend sent me home.”
Mildred now has more gay friends than I do. She goes to gay dinner parties, group camping trips and many Gay Mardi Gras functions. Two years ago, at the gay Art Festival she caused a little stir, especially with a renowned local artist, who had spent many long hours meticulously sculpting and icing a lavish giant cake in the form of a beautiful Indian mythical deity. Like a little child, Mildred hurried across the room to join our group, unknowingly dragging her overloaded handbag right through the just-completed sculpture, shocking the sophisticated gallery-goers and almost causing the poor artist to have a seizure.
“I seem to have gotten some icing on my handbag. Do you have a napkin?” She asked, just a little bit annoyed that her old bag was now soiled. When informed of her faux pas, she replied, “Well it won’t make the cake taste different.”
“I’ve been driving for forty years, and I’ve never had an accident!” She proudly exclaims, graciously forgetting the young boy on the bicycle and the old lady in the parking lot, neither of who were seriously hurt. “The Holy Ghost is always with me,” she says, having turned around to face my boyfriend in the back seat whose horrified gaze is fixed on the huge truck heading right for us.
Mildred was right, because it was a miracle that the huge metal behemoth didn’t squash us like a fly as it whooshed past us with no room to spare. Oblivious, she continued as we hurtled through the hairpin tuns on the old cliff road. “Of course, when it’s my time, take me while I’m driving. Don’t worry!” She reassured us, “I’m sure we’ll all go straight to Heaven.” Happily, it was not our destination that day.
Though probably destined to outlive us all, she’s not in the best of health. A recent infection had her in a serious semi-comatose state, and as they waited for the paramedics, my father and her best friend talked of a social outing planned for the next day. Without hesitation or waking up Mildred piped in with determination in her voice, “I’m going!” And had she not been unconscious for the next four days, I’m sure she would have risked her life to make that luncheon.
She did it once for dinner. We kids took her out to a very popular restaurant, and as we waited in line she fainted. When she came to, she insisted she was fine, but my brother, the saint, took her to the nearby emergency room where she refused to see anyone and made him take her back to the restaurant. She then ordered the richest item on the menu and followed it with two desserts. And not because it was possibly her last meal – she always has two desserts!
She is quickly becoming a legend on two continents. Strangers at my boyfriend’s office call each other Mildred when one does something particularly irrational. Despite her growing fame (and frame) she remains always unaware and totally self-innocent, accepting the miracles that come to her (her rosary once turned to “gold” and there were witnesses.). She sees no irony in going to Mass in the morning and swimming nude in a drug dealer’s party in the evening, while being photographed by the CIB (Australian FBI).
Of course, she can really be annoying but mostly now I laugh, wish her well and send her my love (from a safe distance!)
