For Mother’s Day

I miss my mother.  I miss the way she used to hug me and the way she always had time for an evening story.  I miss the way she laughed at the silly jokes I would come up with  and then, as if to prove she was paying attention to me, added to the joke to make it funnier.  She was an excellent mother growing up.  She served on our home district school board for years to try to improve education conditions for my sister and me, but that isn’t the only way she participated in our lives.  Whenever I needed her, she was available immediately and would drop any activity or important engagement to tend to a cut, bruise or even hurt feelings.  Now that she’s not with me, I miss her more than ever.  She was a very, very special mother to me growing up and I’ll never forget her.

In fact, I think I’ll call her up now.

Oh, did you think my mother had passed away?  Hardly.  She’s got more kick in her than a five legged donkey.  I wrote the first paragraph that way to help remind myself that my mom is special and she’s still here.  I should be appreciating her every day, not just when it is convenient and certainly not after she has gone to that big school-board meeting in the sky.  So if you can take action do so now.  Mother hugging cannot wait another minute! 

To put it another way, I’m saving myself a ton of time and money by NOT having to construct a time machine.  That would be the time machine you wish you had, so you could travel back just once to tell your mother that you loved her before she died. 

Certainly there are some mothers asking the question now, “Am I not important enough to build a time machine for?  You’re smart enough, I don’t care what those Iowa test scores said, you’re gifted and you could make a time machine to come back and visit your mother if you really wanted to, but apparently other things are more important.”  The reply to this statement is simply: “Sorry Mom, Time Machines are for traveling through time, they aren’t made for guilt trips.”

My mom wouldn’t expect that though, she knows I’m not capable of the math it would take to bend the laws of the universe.  Besides, my mom used to say she was just glad there wasn’t two of me, and the time machine would have made that happen.

I get my sense of humor from both sides of the family, but the truly weird stuff definitely comes from my mother.  Her humor is dryer than a moonshine martini and even faster than the white lightning used to mix it.   She can turn a joke around on a dime, but for a quarter, she’ll give you two on top of it and you won’t realize the punch line of them until hours later. 

When my son, who I mildly obsess over, stays with my parents, I frequently call to check up on him.  Whenever my mother answers the phone she is sure to take me for a ride. 

“Hi Mom, how’s Zach doing?  Did he sleep okay?” I’ll ask in a busy, self-absorbed tone.

“I’m fine,” she would say in a calm voice, not answering the question.

“Oh, I’m sorry Mom.  How are you?” I would slow down and ask, aware of my error.

“Well, I said I was fine, so I guess I’m fine,” she would say, waiting for the next line to come out of me.

“What are you going to do today?” I would ask, implying that I’m asking about Mom, Dad and Zachary.

“Oh, I don’t know.  I suppose after we find Zachary, we might take the dogs for a walk.”

“What do you mean ‘find Zachary?’” I would ask in an elevated tone.

“Oh it’s no big deal, it’s only been a couple of hours.  He’ll turn up.  Your dad is out looking for him in the truck,” she would say as if Dad were just out looking for a good deal on a leaf blower.

“Mom!  How long has he been gone?” I would be just a little panicky at the quickness and casual responses of critical information.

“Wait, here he is.  Hey Zachary, do you want to talk to your dad?” mom would say casually as she handed the phone to my son.

Other lines I would get in response to “What is Zachary up to?” would be:

“Last time I saw him, he was playing by the street.”

“He’s hiding in the hot tub.  Took him a long time to close the lid from the underside.”

“Zachary is here?”

“He’s throwing rocks at cars.”

“Well, we’re at the ER…” and so on.

Mom thinks these replies are funny, and sure they really are, but more importantly mom is trying to help teach me to loosen up a little and not worry about my son so much.  It’s a reminder that she raised me and she might have a slight advantage when it comes to raising a child.  She’s seen the future.  She knows it’s better to give a kid space, so she’s trying a subtle way to let me know that I’m one of “those” parents.  The kind of parent that suffocates a kid by not letting them fall, or lose or fail. 

Because you see, my mother is still my teacher.  She isn’t following me around the house and wiping up my bottom or coming with me to my performance reviews, but she still teaches me in a way that an elder teaches a younger adult; through irony and sarcasm, and it works. 

My mother has taught me kindness, compassion and how to take care of a community.  She’s let me learn for myself and make my own opinions.  When I needed to learn a lesson, she let me, but not at the expense of the bigger picture.  And she has always cheered for me and been in my corner. 

Mother’s Day isn’t enough for what mother’s do for us.  Whether it’s your biological mother, a step-mother, a foster mother, adoptive mother or just someone you consider a “mom”, they deserve more gratitude than we give them.  They most definitely deserve to hear it from you, preferably without the use of a time machine, and that’s the Damm truth.