In the late 1970s, my family took several trips to Bermuda. By that time, I was away at college and did not travel with them. Thus, I have no particular memories of the scene recorded in this slide, and by then, my mother’s notations had become more cryptic. If I had to guess, I would say this appears to have been taken on some sort of boat or ferry, but her notes only say “Bermuda, April 1976.” It is a photo of my mother and brother, who would have just turned four.
This photo and the reflection we have done as a family since her death a month ago remind me how long a stretch my mother spent in the enterprise of childrearing. Because my own children are relatively close in age (just 26 months apart), my season of active mothering was never the marathon hers was. She started in the 1950s and did not finish up until the 1990s.
Although arguably, there is not real cut-off or finish line for this job, she spent parts at least of five different decades raising children. And decades in which there were lots of cultural and societal changes to navigate. Even her hairstyle in this photo reflects this. It is a much more relaxed cut than the ones I remember. When I was a child, she had a weekly (and sacrosanct) appointment to have her hair done at Chatelaine Coiffures, a beauty shop in Melrose Highlands. And for the seven days that followed, there would be an arrangement of curls and loft to maintain with various rollers, nets, hairsprays, and a foul smelling gel called Dippety-Do.
I suspect that’s how motherhood went for her, too. Certain things got simpler and more streamlined, but other things got more complicated with the loss of familiar routines and the explosion of options in the 1970s. But from first to last, Priscilla Murch Copeland (1932-2018) gave it her all and did an amazing job (despite our adolescent complaints to the contrary). RIP, Mom. Your work is done.