Mom would have loved this May edition of The Tennessee Magazine. As true and devoted a Tennessee Vols fan as you’ll ever find, she saved what must have been every special-edition magazine and newspaper featuring her favorite team.
I ran across countless orange-headlined copies of The Tennessean, Sports Illustrated and even TV Guide as I scoured cabinets and drop-front desks in my childhood home in search of family records I needed to make final arrangements. My mother, Jane Downing Kirk — born in Pikeville, then settling near Nashville after finding love and starting a family — died in mid-March following an illness.
I wasn’t going to write about Mom, but, honestly, she’s in nearly every thought I’ve had — especially as I decided what to put on this page.
May is National Military Appreciation Month, and about the time you receive this magazine, we’ll lay Mom to rest at the Middle Tennessee State Veterans Cemetery. My dad, Jerry, is an Air Force veteran, and he and Mom decided the serene hills west of Nashville are an ideal final earthly backdrop.
Of course, later this month we’ll celebrate Mother’s Day. I’m sure I’ll reminisce about how excited Mom was the times my wife, Anna, and I told her we were expecting daughters. To our Sloan and Caroline, she was Mawmaw, and she adored her granddaughters. Every single conversation I had with Mom included, “How are the girls?”
Even shepherding this magazine issue to press reminded me of her with nearly every turn of the page.
Though baseball wasn’t her favorite sport — top spots belonged to Lady Vols basketball and Volunteers football — she would have enjoyed our profile of Coach Tony Vitello. She would have been hooked right from the first sight of orange and the Power T.
I thought of Mom when I saw Robin Conover’s “Point of View” photograph this month. Anytime I called Mom or stopped by the house, I knew I’d hear about the latest woodpecker she’d spotted from the screened-in porch. I’d also get updates on the large groundhog that lived under the storage shed as well as more transient deer, turkeys and hawks that passed through my parents’ suburban sanctuary.
These last few weeks have been hard, but we’re healing. Friends far and wide have offered sympathy and comfort, and it makes me feel better to see how far Mom’s loving spirit reached.
As always, thanks for reading our magazine, and this month, thank you for letting a boy reflect and brag on his mom.
