In Memoriam: Carol Runyan Fuchs, Trickster Extraordinaire

My mother, Carol, painted by my aunt, Gabrielle Fuchs

 My mother, Carol Runyan Fuchs, would have turned 90 years old today. I've spent so many years without her now (over 30) that it's difficult even to conjure her in my memory, let alone imagine her at that age.

Actually, that's not true. It's not that hard to see her in my mind's eye. She's usually laughing; she was a trickster, after all. One evening, my college buddies were visiting our house on Scott Lane, and we were all sitting in the living room, chatting and having a beer. Out of nowhere, my roommate, Greg King, stood up and pointed toward the French doors that led out onto a screened porch, muttering something like "What the fuck?"

There, hovering beyond our own reflections in the paned glass, was an eerie, spectral-white, floating, featureless face, with a blank, almost sad expression.

"Mom!" I yelled, once I realized she was wearing the ceramic mask she herself had sculpted some years ago. When she came inside, she was laughing so hard she was snorting. I don't recall who the other young men in the room were (Jem Aswad? Ruben Howard? Ken Weinstein?), but Greg and I were both good and rattled by her little prank.

I also have memories of her sitting close to a lamp, reading. She read a lot. She appreciated good literature; our bookshelves were full, though titles and authors elude me now. I have memories of dozing on the couch, my head in her lap, as she ran her fingers absently through my hair, massaging my scalp as she read. I'd steal glances up at her, as she took sips of her drink, or blew smoke from her Tareytons out of her nostrils. 

Those gin and tonics and cigarettes are ubiquitous when I remember my mother, and are, I'm sure, a big part of why she left us so young. I wonder: what if she had realized at age 30 or so (as I myself had done) that life could be better without cigarettes? I have no idea whether that, along with a more moderate, less habitual, alcohol intake might have kept the pancreatic cancer that claimed her at bay. At least for awhile, perhaps?

There's no way to know the answer to that one, obviously. And to be honest, the likelihood of a 30-year-old smoker choosing to quit in early 1960s America, when professional athletes were still hawking tobacco on TV ads, was unlikely at best. I mean I'm sure it happened, but my mom loved her Tareytons and Gordon's gin to the very end.

I don't know what sort of 90 year old she would have been, had she lived this long. I believe she would have delighted in her daughters-in-law, Heidi and Jeanette. And she certainly would have adored her grandkids, Hannah, Diego, and Jackson. (It's one of my few great regrets in life that she never had the chance to know them.)

I'd like to believe she'd still have that mischievous glint in her eye -- that even at 90 she'd be busy plotting her next prank.