The Official Website of Don McGregor

NOT TO LOSE THAT PERIOD OF TIME

FOR MARSHA - MOTHER'S DAY – 2012

There are no generic, idealized mothers. ... There are women who love their children without reservation.

I don’t recall ever having any preconception of what a Dad should be.

I don’t believe Marsha ever had any real thoughts on what a Mom should be or do.

But when she gave birth, Rob, our son, became an essential part of her life, and she would not qualify that love, I don’t believe she ever tried to define it.

She loved him without reserve.

When he was first born he had jaundice, and she scarcely trusted her Mom or I to take care of Rob during the night, making sure we woke him up to make sure he took in liquids. Rob would cry in protest, but it had to be done to protect him. These are the kind of things you have no clue about before you are a parent, that there was times when you have the harsh task of having to something that will make them cry to keep them safe.

If she never had any rules about what a mother should be or do, Marsha started before Rob was even born, eating natural foods, learning about breast feeding.

As he grew older, Marsha took Rob and Lauren to the swimming pool, to teach them how to swim and not be afraid of the water.
And as Rob grew older, he’d say to me, mischeiviously, “Watch this, Dad,” when he was about to play some trick on her that I would never, ever think of doing. Rob would smile.

“I can get away with this, Dad. You’d better not do it.” He knew it at a young age, and it was true.

She was his mother.

She would fight for him. She would care for him. She would go out and learn about whatever questions he had that she didn’t have the answers for.

She was his Mom.

She fed and nurtured him.

I include this photo (not seen before) from a photo shoot we did with a woman photographer, Lida Moser.

When we did the photos, it was with the thought not to lose that period of time, but also that our son was a part of our lives, and that breast-feeding was a warm, sustaining part of life, as a mother, and as a couple.

And if Time Magazine can have some grown child on a woman’s breast, well, what the hell, Don McGregor can follow his fictional creations, Sabre and Melissa Siren and preserve that love.

And Marsha gave me a choice of three to use.

I know I’m writing this late on Mother’s Day 2012, but I’m glad I did get it done, because mothers (and fathers) when they care, should not be forgotten.

 

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FOR MARSHA
ON HER BIRTHDAY
2011

August the third.

I had no idea that day would become one of the most important in my life.

August 3 – the day Marsha was born.

Marsha – a transplanted Oklahoman woman come to New York City who would change my life forever.

Marsha.

Her name, like the day, now claiming my life inextricably.

Marsha is an unconventional woman.

A beautiful woman who often did not know how beautiful she is.

Her smile brightening the day.

Lighting up her warm, intelligent eyes.

She was a rodeo queen and rode in the pageant; she was an actress and performed off Broadway and got written up in the New York Times; she was Deirdre in the film version of DETECTIVES INC., and I wrote the role for her, knowing she would bring the heart and soul to it; she came to New York City and took it on and the men in it, too; she challenged the racial inequities of the time, standing firm where others would not have gone.  Statistically, she was never conventional in those days; she dared go where many never would.

When Marsha committed herself to whatever she was doing, she held nothing back, she gave everything to it, with passion, caught in the
moment without any regard for personal hurts that should have wounded her and made her put up her guard.

In any area of her life, she would put her energy and soul into it.

Being a mother.

Daughter.

Acting.

Working.

Sex.

Whatever she was focused on, she did it with wild abandon and true grit.

She never did any of it half way.

As I wrote in my introduction to Sabre:  The Decadence Indoctrination, she is my Melissa Siren.

And she stands before a page with Sabre and Melissa together, her beauty and smile caught in one image.
Happy birthday!

2011.