A son's Mother's Day lament (from '13)

(717 words)

The woman sounded alarmed. She called to tell me she thinks Mom, 80, is really slipping.

“She asked me to take her to the dentist the other day,” she said. “I told her to meet me in the lobby. When I got there she smiled and said, ‘Do I know you?’ She wasn’t joking.”

That Mom’s asking people I don’t know to ferry her to the dentist alarms me.

The woman’s one of Mom’s neighbors in the condo where she’s lived the past 12 years. My second cousin’s been living there with her the past two years, but the busy girl has a boyfriend and Mom doesn’t see her much.

I sensed the kind woman wants me to move Mom out of there into someplace where she could get more care.

Mom dreads the thought. She’s comfortable where she is.

Me, I’m like a third string quarterback with a fourth quarter lead. I’m just trying to run out the clock and not make any stupid mistakes to infuriate the fans.

I didn’t tell the woman that financial considerations are in play. We are in no position to add any level of elevated care for her.

I didn’t tell her caring for her has led to a profound estrangement from my absent older brother, someone I used to lean on for advice and support. We haven’t spoken for two years and any thaw seems unlikely. It’s something I should have seen coming, I guess. 

Fifty years is a long time for a conservative to love anything.

I didn’t tell her I know I should feel more ashamed that I think it would solve a lot of problems if Mom just dropped dead of a massive heart attack. 

I didn’t tell her any of those things. Instead, I just thanked her for her call and concern.

“Sure,” she said. “I really love Rachel. I just thought I should tell you about your mother.”

Tell me about my mother?

Let me tell you about my mother.

I always think of her whenever I see Carol Burnett.

It’s too bad they never met. They would have been great friends. They had the same preposterous sense of humor. It enriches the lives of all who know her.

I’ll never forget the day Mom did a sit-up.

One.

I was probably about 15 or 16. It was the summer that she for some reason decided to take up the fitness kick.

She lay down on the floor and asked me to secure her feet. She put her arms behind her head and raised up to her knees.

Then on the reverse as she was trying to strengthen some muscles in her body, other key ones loosened. Her body became a bellows.

There, about a foot from my face, she blasted out the kind of fart that would have earned cheers in a fraternity house.

I don’t know how your mother would react, but here’s how mine did: she howled with laughter. It may not have resulted in the desired weight loss, but right there she laughed her ass off.

I did, too.

It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

She grew up in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Yes, she and Groundhog Phil spring from the same ground. But unlike Phil, she’s never seen a shadow.

She’s one of the most sunny people I’ve ever known. 

A friend of mine told me it was his experience that a person with dementia becomes the opposite of what they were prior to onset. He said his once-darling mother became a mean old bitch before she died.

I don’t see that happening, and it will surely kill me if it does. If anything, she’s become even more childishly cheerful as her mental capacity is decreasing. Next to her, the late Fred Rogers was a cranky sourpuss.

Today’s not the day to write a eulogy for a woman who, if she lives as long as her 97-year-old father did, will endure until, gulp, 2030.

So today I will simply wish you and your loved ones a Happy Mother’s Day and share with you a lesson I learned at the feet of my dear, sweet mother:

Remember to try and always laugh your ass off even during the times when the situation really stinks.

Related . . .

The reason men dislike excessive tattoos

Doc says Mom not crazy (2010)

Mom’s making crazy contagious by a nose (2011)

From '13: Missing the Mom that used to be

Wish I had something more cheerful, but Mother’s Day leaves me a little blue lately. I share this from ’13 because I know I’m not alone. Today we’re all either celebrating our Moms or in some way missing them.

(717 words)

The woman sounded alarmed. She called to tell me she thinks Mom, 80, is really slipping.

“She asked me to take her to the dentist the other day,” she said. “I told her to meet me in the lobby. When I got there she smiled and said, ‘Do I know you?’ She wasn’t joking.”

That Mom’s asking people I don’t know to ferry her to the dentist alarms me.

The woman’s one of Mom’s neighbors in the condo where she’s lived the past 12 years. My second cousin’s been living there with her the past two years, but the busy girl has a boyfriend and Mom doesn’t see her much.

I sensed the kind woman wants me to move Mom out of there into someplace where she could get more care.

Mom dreads the thought. She’s comfortable where she is.

Me, I’m like a third string quarterback with a fourth quarter lead. I’m just trying to run out the clock and not make any stupid mistakes to infuriate the fans.

I didn’t tell the woman that financial considerations are in play. We are in no position to add any level of elevated care for her.

I didn’t tell her caring for her has led to a profound estrangement from my absent older brother, someone I used to lean on for advice and support. We haven’t spoken for two years and any thaw seems unlikely. It’s something I should have seen coming, I guess. 

Fifty years is a long time for a conservative to love anything.

I didn’t tell her I know I should feel more ashamed that I think it would solve a lot of problems if Mom just dropped dead of a massive heart attack. 

I didn’t tell her any of those things. Instead, I just thanked her for her call and concern.

“Sure,” she said. “I really love Rachel. I just thought I should tell you about your mother.”

Tell me about my mother?

Let me tell you about my mother.

I always think of her whenever I see Carol Burnett.

It’s too bad they never met. They would have been great friends. They had the same preposterous sense of humor. It enriches the lives of all who know her.

I’ll never forget the day Mom did a sit-up.

One.

I was probably about 15 or 16. It was the summer that she for some reason decided to take up the fitness kick.

She lay down on the floor and asked me to secure her feet. She put her arms behind her head and raised up to her knees.

Then on the reverse as she was trying to strengthen some muscles in her body, other key ones loosened. Her body became a bellows.

There, about a foot from my face, she blasted out the kind of fart that would have earned cheers in a fraternity house.

I don’t know how your mother would react, but here’s how mine did: she howled with laughter. It may not have resulted in the desired weight loss, but right there she laughed her ass off.

I did, too.

It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

She grew up in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Yes, she and Groundhog Phil spring from the same ground. But unlike Phil, she’s never seen a shadow.

She’s one of the most sunny people I’ve ever known. 

A friend of mine told me it was his experience that a person with dementia becomes the opposite of what they were prior to onset. He said his once-darling mother became a mean old bitch before she died.

I don’t see that happening, and it will surely kill me if it does. If anything, she’s become even more childishly cheerful as her mental capacity is decreasing. Next to her, the late Fred Rogers was a cranky sourpuss.

Today’s not the day to write a eulogy for a woman who, if she lives as long as her 97-year-old father did, will endure until, gulp, 2030.

So today I will simply wish you and your loved ones a Happy Mother’s Day and share with you a lesson I learned at the feet of my dear, sweet mother:

Remember to try and always laugh your ass off even during the times when the situation really stinks.

Related . . .

The reason men dislike excessive tattoos

Doc says Mom not crazy (2010)

Mom’s making crazy contagious by a nose (2011)

A stiff tribute to moms & cadavers

I was eager to read Michael Perry’s recent
Men’s Health article about human cadaver donation for two reasons: First, Perry’s a terrific writer who’s flattered me by saying nice things about my work. Funny how that makes us all more charitable in our opinions of one another’s abilities.

But Perry, author of “Population 485,” “Truck,” and the recently released “Coop,” is the kind of writer that makes me glad I never mastered speed reading. His are sentences to savor. I wanted to see how he crafted his gems around the squeamish topic of people who donate their bodies to medical schools so future doctors can dissect the corpses for essential education.

But the main reason was because I’m on intimate terms with a genuine human cadaver. Don’t jump to any necrophiliac conclusions.

The girl’s not dead yet. But she’s pledged to become one.

She’s my darling white-haired mother. Her sense of humor has always reminded me of Carol Burnett’s. She’s sweet, warm and few things make me happier than the sound of her infectious laughter bubbling up when one of her enchanted granddaughters is cradled in her arms.

And nothing creeps me out more than to realize that one day some wisecracking, hungover med student is going to be poking through her exposed thoracic cavity while she lies naked and deader than hell on some cold examination table. This is a dainty and demure woman who gets upset when I insist to my daughters that Nana has a tattoo of Sponge Bob Square Pants on her ass and that she’ll deny it’s there.

And deny it, she does.

I realize my discomfort over her donation is at odds with the generous philosophy she and my Dad bestowed on their two sons. It’s because of them that Eric and I are enthusiastic organ donors. I think leaving my organs behind to enrich ailing strangers will one day inspire my daughters into forgiving me for leaving them with nothing but an old golf bag full of bent tees and expired coupons.

My fun-loving late father could be a bit of a cad, but he never went the full cadaver. His remains were cremated. I put my portion in a decorative wine decanter and decoupaged it with pictures of him and our loved ones.

If I’m going to play at a nice golf course or visit the beach, I always take some with me to scatter on some lovely vista. He likes that, I’m sure.

But, Mom, my goodness, what am I going to do about her? There will be nothing left to eulogize.

Perry’s article confirms my fears that precious little reverential decorum is present as they dig about (some are gloveless -- gloveless!) in the bodies to learn that the legbone’s connected to the hipbone, the hipbone’s connected to the . . .

I’m sure the banter’s tempered whenever an observant reporter is present. It’s always been my suspicion that the first thing medical teams do once the anesthesia kicks in is lift the blanket and make juvenile fun of everyone’s genitalia.

Well, not my genitalia.

Perry stresses the importance of cadaver donation as essential in helping solve many of the medical problems that once bedeviled us and kept lives uniformly short.

“One way or another, the dead people here are substituting for you and me,” he writes. “If you are healthy and hope to stay that way, at some point you will rely on the services of medical professionals who learned their craft by cutting into a cadaver.”

He writes movingly of services where those who make this generous sort of donation are eulogized and praised for their selflessness.

I’m for all of that . . . But leave my Mommy alone!

The article makes clear that the cadaver examinations are painstakingly thorough. They go through all the internal organs, tease out the nerves in the legs, and slice away at the body until these once vital beings are nothing but memories and scattered pieces of bone and tissue.

My mother’s dear self-deprecating humor makes me wonder if she ever believes me when I tell her how much I love her, how much she means to me and how grateful I’ve been to have gone through life with her as my friend.

No relationship is so simultaneously simple and complicated as the relationship between mother and child. We can never repay all they’ve done for us. All we can do is be kind and patient as we all march along together toward our messy mortal conclusions.

As we celebrate Mother’s Day, I hope you are at peace with your mother and any difficulties involved in that complicated relationship are overshadowed by the majesty of it all.

And I hope it’s many healthy and productive years before my own mother winds up in pieces.