Each Day is Valentine's Day

[A quilt by Elizabeth Caldwell Talford Scott.]

Today was an amazing day. I knew that it would be, but at the same time I was not looking forward to it. Today I went to the funeral of Elizabeth Caldwell Talford Scott, the mother of Joyce J. Scott. You always hear people saying that they don't want their funeral to be sad, they want it to be a celebration. But for all those good intentions, I have never been to a funeral that truly was a celebration. Until today.

The chapel at the Joseph Brown Funeral Home practically vibrated with all the creative energy and talent that was assembled in that room, too many names to even drop, the Who's Who of the Baltimore art scene and beyond, faces I recognized from MICA, the BMA, The Reginald F. Lewis Museum, and The Creative Alliance. Many of these friends of Joyce had known her mother for many years, some had known her their whole life. They spoke lovingly of memories of Elizabeth, all of which of course also included Joyce. Lorraine Whittlesey, Joyce's collaborative partner in Ebony & Irony, played the organ before and during the service. Aissatou Bey-Gracia and Kay Lawal Muhammed (Joyce's other half in The Thunder Thigh Revue) gave a spoken word performance of "Ode to Mama Lizzie," a poem by Joyce for her mother. George Ciscle, Dr. Leslie King-Hammond, Oletha Devane, Ellen Burchenal, and Linda DePalma gave their remembrances of Elizabeth, as did Kweisi Mfume, just three days after he spoke at William Donald Schaeffer's funeral.

I learned a lot about Mama Lizzie today that made me wish even more so that I could have really known her. By the time I met her in 2008 she was in need of 24-hour care, and could only communicate with Joyce and a few who knew her best and took care of her. This was at the time that I had asked Joyce to take a role in "Smalltimore". Though Joyce wanted to do it, it meant less time with her mother, and having to make arrangements for her care during the many hours Joyce would be on the set. To my eternal gratitude, Joyce worked it out and was able to take the role. Not many people know this, but originally the character's name was Mrs. Wainwright. The character is a wealthy, eccentric, widowed artist, and I thought "Wainwright" sounded like a rich name, and it was also the last name of a close friend. But I wanted to do something to show Joyce how honored I was that she took the role, and something to honor her mother, for the sacrifice, so I told Joyce that I would like to change the character's name to Mrs. Talford. So that is how that came to be.

I learned today that Elizabeth Caldwell Talford Scott has had her artwork exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art; has taught workshops at The Smithsonian Museum; and had received the Women's Caucus for Honor Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Visual Arts. I learned more than I had already known about the sacrifices she had made for Joyce, learned more about the passions she instilled in Joyce, and learned about the ones that didn't take, such as cooking and gardening.

I flashed back to a recent event, Joyce speaking at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum shortly after the opening of the group show, "Material Girls," a current exhibit at the museum in which Joyce has several pieces. Before she started to talk that day, she first broke into song, which Joyce is prone to do at any given moment. "There'll be one child born..." she sang, "to carry on..." She sang the whole song. Her audience was so rapt that other than her voice you could have heard a pin drop. I wrote about that day a few posts earlier in this blog, and I mentioned that I became emotional several times during her talk, but especially during this song. Before that, I didn't know exactly what she was going to be talking about that day. When she sang it, I knew that she was about to talk about her mother. And, knowing her mother's age and health, I flashed forward to the day that was closer than we could have known at the time - the day that Joyce would have to say goodbye to her mother.

Joyce appeared to be very strong and calm today. It truly felt as if this vibration of love, respect, admiration, and joy, was helping Joyce to lift her mother's spirit to the sky. My own strength came and went, as I felt her pain, and thought of my own loss eight years ago when I was with my Dad for the last five weeks of his very short life. The service was flowing gently through the scheduled songs and speakers. About halfway through the program, I believe it was after Leslie and Oletha spoke, Joyce, unscripted, began to sing. She stayed in her seat in the front row, looking straight ahead, and sang, "My Funny Valentine," from beginning to end. No one moved a muscle. I heard someone whisper that it had been one of Elizabeth's favorite songs. One by one, people, myself included, wiped a tear, then two, then three, trying to be discreet, wishing we had Joyce's strength, wishing we could be as strong as her, for her.

"Don't change a hair for me. Not if you care for me. Stay, Funny Valentine, stay...
Each day is Valentine's Day..."

Finally, on the last two words, Joyce's voice broke.
As did my heart.

And others who refuse to admit,
That life without magnanimous love ain't worth spit.
That Mama Lizzy and her contemporaries will bust the universe and wax
Contrary,
She's the silver horizon between dusk and dawn.

~ from "Ode to Mama Lizzie"
by Joyce J. Scott