Complement: a thing that completes or brings to perfection

As my father was teaching in a classroom or writing in his office on the campus of the University of Nebraska Kearney, three blocks away in my family home, my mother, his complement, was faithfully, humbly holding down the fort. Literally. With a teaching husband, five children, and a backyard full of homing pigeons, our fort desperately needed holding down.

My mother has always been my father’s first, best reader. Even in the early years, when she knew little about poetry, she read, she listened, and she encouraged. Through time, she became an accomplished and critical reader whose discerning eye and ear rivaled those with formal credentials. As I was reading through a notebook of my dad’s unpublished poetry, I found–handwritten–Marcia at the bottom of many pages. These were the poems that passed the test. The keepers, according to my father’s complement.

Whereas my father’s words sustained me throughout my adolescence, my mother’s physical presence sustained me. Before I left for school, when I returned from school or school activities, at bedtime when others were sleeping and I could never find sleep, my mother was there. When I competed in high school track, my mother was one of few hometown spectators in the stands of outstate Nebraska tracks. Braving all sorts of inclement weather, my mother would wear garbage bags to protect herself and the whole team’s stash of Hersey bars, crackers, and cookies. A green plastic visor kept rain from her eyes as she cheered us on and, later when the bus would return us to Kearney, she would rub the cold from our bones.

In the sanctuary of complements, there is the one to complete you and bring you to perfection. The one may live primarily in the foreground or in the background. It’s the coupling, the sublime matching of one soul to another that, in the end, matters.

For every “great” idea that my dad had–making snow ice cream and using yellow food coloring to make it more festive (really, dad???), doctoring up his homemade fudge with a variety of added ingredients, like red hots (really, dad???), facilitating our pre-bedtime jumping from my sister’s twin bed to mine, jumping that resulted in breaking several slats from both beds (really, dad???)–my mother complemented him with even better ideas: why not use blue or red food coloring to make the snow ice cream NOT appear like you scooped the snow up from under the pigeon loft? (yes, mom!!!); have you considered using walnuts in your fudge instead of red hots (yes, mom!!!); and how about a great bedtime story in lieu of bed-jumping (probably a better idea, mom).

As my dad was meeting with and mentoring students, my mom was meeting with and mentoring neighbors, advocating for those less able and fortunate in our community, and opening her home to any and everyone who needed a home-cooked meal and a temporary refuge from the cares of the world. My son, Quinn, and his UNK football friends still rave about my mom’s spreads and my dad’s football talk. In the sanctuary of complements, you really do get the best of both worlds.

Just last night as I was lying in bed, an image of my dad (circa 1975) came to me. He entered my English 100 class, having dressed himself and escaped from home before my mom could give him the “look over.” Imagine this: my dad decked out in maroon polyester flared pants (well, it was the 70s), a red, button-down shirt (he claimed that it, too, was maroon and therefore, “matched”), and the piece de resistance? An olive green cardigan sweater. A friend and fellow classmate turned to me and gasped, “Has your mom seen him?” After class, I ran back to my dorm room to make the emergency call to my mom who, over lunch, remade my father and sent him back to class looking more like himself and less like a color-challenged Mr. Rogers. This is why we all need a complement. To look us over, check us out, remake what needs remade, and send us happily and completely on our way.

So here’s to complements! May you ever rejoice in your perfect pairing, your yin to another’s yang, your foreground to another’s background, your red hots to another’s walnuts!

And here’s to my mother, Marcia Welch. In the sanctuary of complements–and in the spirit of the Olympic Games–she is the gold medalist, indeed.