Lavish Love

One of the most glorious places of my childhood was Southern Hills Mall in Sioux City, Iowa. Good things happened there. On Sundays, we joined other spruced-up, after-church families at Bishop’s Buffet, where glorious delights like roast beef, ham and mashed potatoes sprawled seductively on small, white plates beneath orange heat lamps. By age 12, my friends and I were allowed to walk around for an hour or two unsupervised, while my mom shopped for towels at Younkers. As soon as she was out of sight, we ducked into Spencer Gifts to snicker at raunchy coffee mugs and greeting cards full of innuendos we didn’t understand. We strolled to the food court, where a few dollars of allowance would buy an Orange Julius and a bag of Karmelkorn. When our time was up, we met Mom at the huge clock that stood at the mall’s center. She smiled brightly as we approached, relieved that we’d avoided abduction (narrowly, probably), thanks to the stranger-danger lecture we’d been given earlier. Child predators lurked at the mall, we were told, though we never saw one.

The mall was where I got my first off-the-farm job at Happy Joe’s, where I slung pizza, scooped ice cream, and flirted with the East High School football players who worked there. Later, I worked at Paul Harris, where I folded sweaters and dressed mannequins in mock turtlenecks and heavily-shoulder-padded blazers, working to earn enough to buy them for myself with my employee discount.

Best of all, though, each year, on a weeknight in December, we piled into our family’s Toyota Cressida and drove from our farm 17 miles southeast of Sioux City to choose gifts for one another at the mall. Over the course of several hours, we formed one grouping and then another, so that everyone could keep their gift selections secret: Mom with the girls and Dad with Guy, then Mom with Guy and Dad with the girls. We were allowed to choose whatever gifts we wanted to buy, within our allotted per-person budget, no matter how irrelevant or frivolous. A Jean Nate bath set for mom; a Pinnochio paint-by-number set from Guy to Hilary, a Hello Kitty scented marker set from Hilary to Josie, a Claire’s beaded necklace from Guy to Josie, warm winter work gloves from Guy to Dad.

At Christmastime, a gigantic tree stood at the mall’s center, decorated with gift tags for children in need. Mom stopped to read the tags as we tried to nudge her away, “Mom, let’s gooooo…. The mall’s closing soon.” Some of the tags bore wishes for toys, but most of them were more pragmatic: gloves, boots, new jeans. Mom picked a tag that read, “Girl, age 6. Winter coat.”

Later that same week, Mom and I went back to the mall and headed straight to Burke’s Children’s Store. Clearly, Mom meant business. Burke’s was fancy. The old ladies who worked there wore pantsuits and beaded eyeglass chains, and guided you around the store to select luxuries, which they wrapped in tissue paper sealed with an embossed Burke’s sticker and nestled into a gold paper Burke’s shopping bag with grosgrain ribbon handles. You didn’t buy play clothes or school clothes or snow gear at Burke’s. That’s what Kmart was for. Burke’s was where Mom took you to shop only rarely, to buy an Easter dress or a sweater and corduroys for Christmas Day at Grandma’s.

“I’m looking for a size 6 winter coat for a little girl,” Mom said to Yvonne, one of the sales ladies. Yvonne gestured knowingly toward the girls’ section of the store. At her command, we followed the cloud of cloying perfume and the jangle of bracelets. She selected one coat after another from the metal rounder, laying it out for examination and patting it gently with red-tipped fingers. There were endless options: playground-worthy, puffy, nylon parkas and navy, wool pea coats with big, bronze buttons. “Mmmm,” Mom said, not seeing what she’d come for. “I need something prettier.” Yvonne nodded, yogi-like, as if to say, “Ahhh, yes. I now know why you’ve come.” She extracted a thick, blush-pink, faux-fur winter waistcoat from the rack and held it up, petting it like a baby bunny and adjusting the decadent pom-poms that hung from its satin-lined hood. “That’s the one,” Mom beamed. Yvonne helped Mom select matching ivory faux-fur ear muffs and fur-trimmed ivory gloves before tucking the furry treasure into its tissue bedding, and then into a huge foil box, adorned with the signature Burke’s sticker.

Back at home, Mom laid the coat out on the dining room table, surrounded by its tissue wrapping. As she walked by, she smiled at it and ran her hand across its fur from time to time. My sister and I looked on a few days later as Mom boxed up the coat, muffs and gloves and wrapped the box in shiny, red foil paper with a huge bow. As she worked, she told us that this was exactly the kind of coat she always wanted as a little girl. “It’s the kind of coat that makes you feel pretty,” she said. I knew that this was not the kind of coat she’d ever worn. My grandma, a single mother in the 1950s with very little money, bought winter coats that were durable and practical and meant to last three winters: one too big, one just right, one too small. My mother’s childhood coats were to keep her warm, not make her feel pretty.

The pink, faux-fur coat would do both. It was most certainly warm and cozy, but it would also make one very special little girl feel feminine, wrapped in a big, pink fur hug. She would be the prettiest girl on the playground, if only for a little while. This coat was lavish, extravagant. The girl who wore it would feel like a princess. My dad had called it impractical and said it would soon get dirty and frayed. “I know,” said my mother. “It won’t hide stains,” he said. “I know,” Mom said, “But, it’s beautiful.”

That is how my mother loves. Lavishly, extravagantly, without regard for measured portion, way beyond what’s enough. She loves in order to make you feel like the best-loved girl in the world.

Everything my Mom does, she always fills it to the brim and spilling over. Her actions gush, “This part’s because you need it, and here’s something extra to show you how much I love loving you.” Her extravagant love and attention ensured that I was always the girl with the best of everything, though not the most expensive. I often won our elementary school’s homecoming parade costume contest with her homemade costumes. My birthday parties were a festival of the best games, favors and decorations she could create out of what she found in the craft closet. My May baskets were always the ones my classmates hoped to draw the number for. As a little girl, I relished Mom’s after-nap snacks: ice cream cones with little chocolate chip “surprises” hidden inside. My mom’s lavish love makes every ordinary day extraordinary, and makes every ordinary person feel like the best-loved prince or princess in the whole, wide world.

My own winter coat that year was probably more along the lines of the playground-worthy practical parka, but I wasn’t jealous. I knew that a little girl who would list a winter coat as the thing she most wanted for Christmas didn’t have a life to match the pink coat’s furry opulence. I just hoped that for a little while, this girl would feel as beautiful and cherished as I got to feel every day, my whole life long, because my Mom loves me lavishly.