Lois Lavrisa - Newspaper Clipping Connection

March 26, 2007
Written by: Lois Lavrisa
www.loislavrisa.com
loislavrisa@bellsouth.net

“THE NEWSPAPER CLIPPING CONNECTION”

Newspapers provide a safe line of communication for my mother and me. It’s a unique and bizarre bond that started when I was 17 and left home to attend college, and continues to this day over thirty years later. Regrettably, out of her five children, I'm the most distant both physically and emotionally from her. Perhaps she feels the detachment, and tries to connect with me by sending newspaper clippings. Or maybe not.

Okay, it is not what you think. We’re not highbrow people having NPR type deliberations on our philosophies and intellectual take on the news. Actually, when she found out my political views differed from hers, she refused to talk politics with me at all.

My mother is addicted to clipping and commenting on my memories- at least what she thinks are my memories. She chooses the article, cuts or tears it out, adds her comments in red ink, then haphazardly folds and shoves it into a small envelope. Sort of like a size 16 trying to fit into a size 4. I can always tell when an envelope has a clipping; it bulges out in strange places, needs extra postage and has scotch tape keeping it shut.

A clipping typically has several sections underlined in red, with comments written in the margins. Apparently my mother thinks I can’t decipher the article myself and need her interpretation.

She seems to relish sending obituaries. Half the time they are about people I can’t identify. Nevertheless, she scrawls notes that say things like, “Remember our neighbor’s brother’s pet sitters friend? I know you know him. Well he’s dead. He barely made 60 years- all that smoking finally did him in.”

My mother taught in the same school district I attended, so there are often clippings about teachers, her peers, retiring. “She was your kindergarten teacher’s aide for one month before she got pregnant- remember her?”

I don’t want to disappoint her, so I fake the recollection so she has the freedom to talk at length about the clipping. Actually, in some way I feel lucky. My friends’ parents grill them about personal stuff. Mine sticks to discussions on her newspaper clippings. Either she feels I’m perfect, or is afraid to ask about anything not printed for public knowledge.

My mom loves sending wedding clippings. I don’t mind receiving them. It’s a way for me to keep up with what is happening in lives I have lost contact with.

Though there was one clipping that bothered me. She sent it one year my after my college best friend and I had drifted apart. It was wedding picture. The notes in the margin, “Did you know that she was getting married? Who’s the groom? Why weren’t you at the wedding? Or her maid of honor? Did you know about this?” I avoided talking about that clip; I didn’t have answers to her questions.

This past year I received a clipping of an article with an accompanying picture. It was of a former college boyfriend of mine, Mike, whose womanizing had broken my heart years ago. The article was about a new course in improvisational acting being held at the local community college. My ex is the instructor. My mother’s notes, “See Mike leering at that girl in the photo? I bet he got into teaching to pick up young girls. Look at the photo. See his eyes undressing that girl- do you see it? Improv- bullshit, I know what he’s doing!”

A different time, my mother hit a trifecta with her clipping. It was (1) an obituary (2) involving one of my past teachers and (3) dredged a painful memory. This clipping was the obituary for my high school gym teacher. I had had a horrible time in her class. There was a gang of thugs who tormented me. Amongst the gang’s acts of cruelty, they lined me in the head with volleyballs during gym class until my head nearly snapped off my neck. The gym teacher was afraid of the gang, so she disregarded their volleyball missiles aimed at me. I was an honor roll, shy nerdy pom pom girl- apparently I was fair target for the gang’s brutality. For mere survival, I went to the dean’s office and put myself in internal suspension until the dean switched my gym class. I never told my mom the story until twenty years after the incident, for fear if I had said anything at the time I might have suffered retaliation from the gang. Even though the incident was history, she was still furious at the teacher for having had ignored the violence. Scrawled in the margins of the gym teacher’s obituary, “Ding Dong the witch is dead. Good Riddance.”

A few months ago, she sent a three page pictorial article of my former boyfriend, Robert. I read what is happening in his life. He is still a well-known photographer, but now he’s married and travels to Cambodia adopting orphans who live in deplorable conditions. Furthermore, he and his wife have set up a foundation to aid these children, and he produced a photo documentary depicting these orphans’ plight. Here’s a bizarre twist, uncharacteristic for my mother. The article had not one underline, or handwritten note. Was it because my mom had retired-after her 38-year teaching career- and red pens were now banned to civilians?

I read the article and the accompanying pictures of Robert, the orphans, his wife. I thought about my life with my husband of almost twenty years, Tom, and our four children. Through this clipping I had the unique privilege to glimpse at what my life could have been had I stayed with Robert. He was incredibly kind and thoughtful. However, in the end, I didn’t feel strong enough chemistry with him to continue the relationship.

A group of my friends were over when I received the clipping about Robert. We all wondered why there were no red “Mom Notes” scribbled in the margins. Consequently, we pondered what she could have been thinking.

Did my mother send the clipping to let me know what a great guy Robert was and that I should have married him? Did she send it to let me know a former beau of mine was noble for using his talents to help underprivileged? Did she think that I, a freelance writer with a wonderful husband and children, was not doing as well as if I'd married Robert?

True to form, a few days later came my mother’s follow up phone call about the clipping regarding Robert. “So did you get the stuff about Robert? What a dork huh? What about adopting all those orphans- does he think he’s Brad Pitt with Angelina Jolie or what?”

I was mildly irritated and wanted to say, “No mom. He’s a very nice guy. And I married one just like that, only better. I have chemistry with this one.” However, she was having so much fun chattering about her take on the clipping that I listened for a while then switched the subject I knew would jar her out of her analysis. “So what about the next election?”

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