Rockin' the Valentine Blues

Two months before their wedding, my mother talks my father into seeing Blues Brothers (the original) in the theater because she likes the music and loves Animal House. Thus, the Blues Brothers becomes part of the fabric of their marriage.

On the sporadic occasions during my childhood when one or both of my parents dust off the record player to show my sisters and I how vinyl sounds, Blues Brothers Live inevitably winds up on the turntable.

For Christmas one year, my aunt gives them matching black t-shirts from the House of Blues in Dallas, and my mother smiles each time she sees the caricatures of Jake and Elwood on the front. She wears her shirt so often that it fades faster than my father's, which becomes apparent once my mother fully relies on Father to pick out her daily attire. Only then do they sport the shirts on the same day. 

My sisters and father take her to a Blues Brothers revival show in Omaha. Mother shows me her program and asks, “Did you see this?” I tell her I didn't and ask if she had a good time. She nods her head and points at the cover. “Did you see this?” she asks again. A copy of the show's flier hangs on the fridge for years, among our family photos and graduation pictures.

After Mother moves into the Memory Unit, she seems to transform into someone almost unrecognizable. She shuffles instead of walking, her shrunken body listing precariously to the right as her chin rests on her chest. Gone is the bounce in her step when staccatos and allegros take possession of her legs. More often than not she nearly dozes off as soon as she sits down anywhere, including at the dinner table. One afternoon, however, Blues Brothers plays on the living room television, and my mother can't keep her eyes off the screen. I hold her hand as the band gives their performance in the concert hall, and she squeezes my fingers in time to the beat. When I glance at her, her eyebrows twitch upward and her smile expands.

Mother's most comfortable clothes go with her to the Memory Unit. The rest take up a small fraction of the closet she shared with my father. Among the remaining clothes on her side are the two t-shirts, one smaller and more faded than the other, hanging side by side; my father's silent tribute to his wife and the memories they share.