Ironically, she had (at times) a great sense of humor—and humor is the inheritance from her I most treasure. Humor continues to help me cope with and (hopefully) transmute the darker magick she bequeathed me. Here are a few passages from the eulogy I delivered at her funeral. I may sound a bit disrespectful in the short clip below, but the pastor and congregation of her church certainly didn’t think so. They knew my mother too well. The laughter in the sanctuary was a healthy discharge of emotion for all of us.
From: A Son’s Eulogy
Christ Presbyterian Church,
Lakewood, California, January 26, 2008
I’m sure not all mothers are vampires, but mine was. I sucked her milk for less than a year; then she sucked my blood for the next fifty-nine. Up to a point, I think it’s part of the natural order of things. We all live off each other in one way or another. If someone really needs to be nourished with my energy, I’m happy to “bleed” a little for them, but I really resent it when they don’t really “drink” my blood but instead spill it all over the floor. I’m sad to say in her ninety-four years Mom spilled a lot of people’s blood all over the floor.
Please don’t get me wrong. Mom loved people … but she hated all other living things. You’d never catch her petting a dog or stroking a cat. She strove to kill all insects both inside and outside of the house. She didn’t even care too much for flowers because of the chance they might harbor an insect.
You never wanted to take her to a restaurant to which you ever intended to return. She ran waiters and waitresses ragged … and if she didn’t like the food, she would often call them to the table, take the food out of her mouth and say, “Honey … look at this … would you eat that?” She would then try to get them to eat some of it before sending it back. Toward the end of the meal, she always loudly announced (within earshot of the haggard waitress) that she didn’t believe in tipping.
She always stole the napkins.
To say she was strong-willed and self-centered would be a colossal understatement. If I were to use the title of a popular song to describe the character of this amazing person, it would have to be Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”!
As a matter of fact, when she was in her late seventies, she demonstrated how true this was by causing herself and her entire party to be kicked out of a Frank Sinatra concert in Long Beach because she refused to stop loudly chatting with her friends during his performance.
Sadly, I must give her mixed reviews as far as her parenting skills were concerned. She subscribed to the old-school philosophy that states a mother should never whip a child unless she is red-in-the-face in the throes of a violent blind rage and completely out of control. These beatings were perhaps tame compared to some stories of abuse. Once, however, as I struggled to escape a paddling, she missed her mark and hit me in the head with the edge of the wooden paddle. I guess it scared her pretty badly to see me stunned blind and bouncing off the furniture.
But I’m all grown up now … and have forgotten all about it.
Because I was the second-born child, I personally escaped many of the more severe and damaging effects her maternal learning curve visited upon my older brother Marc in the six years of his life before I was born.
But Marc’s all grown up now too … and I’m sure has forgotten all about it …
Yes, Lucinda Myrtle DuQuette was quite a character—strong-willed, charismatic, wicked, and unforgettable. A few months before she died, I wrote her this little poem.
Perhaps we were neighbors.
Perhaps we were kin.
Perhaps we were husband and wife.
Perhaps we were friends.
Perhaps we were foes.
Perhaps we took each other’s life.
No matter the bonds
We bring from the past,
Or what we once were to each other,
Whether parent or spouse,
Sister or brother,
This time around you’re our mother.
So as this part of our lives
Draws near to a close,
And the stage soon will be set for another,
Let’s kiss and let’s laugh, and set fire to the past,
And forgive and forget one another.
My father was a different kind of magician altogether. He was a quiet and moody Scorpio given to bouts of depression. He liked to drink during the years before I was born, but Mom’s willingness to drive to his favorite after-work watering hole and physically pull him off his barstool and out to the car put an end to that. Dad didn’t talk much about his parents and family, other than to say he had one sister and three half-sisters, all older than he. To my knowledge, he never met any of his grandparents. His father came from France; his mother came from England. She’d been married once before and had three girls from that union. Her father was an inspector for Scotland Yard who died during the events of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. The only thing we know about Grandma DuQuette’s mother was a story that I find somewhat unnerving—something that my mother didn’t tell me until a week or so before she died in 2007. I was
