mothers day

Today is Mothers Day.

I will wish Miriam a special day, she is the resident mother here at my house. I’ll do something special for her (cash is short, so it won’t involve much money), and our daughters will all call and wish her a happy day.

But, I will be thinking of my mother.

Mom was a widow at 24. She was short, but she was tough. Before Dad was killed mom delivered 4 babies and buried two. She was a survivor. My memories of mom are universally good .

Mom was a pillar of strength. She was consistent in her judgment and good advice. She loved Miriam and my daughters (we spent her last decade living a couple of blocks away). When Lora (daughter 2) was just getting the hang of reading, mom gave her a kids picture dictionary. She wrote in it: To Lora, the girl who loves words." Mom noticed.

She dreamed of going to college. After they were married she went to college one semester and loved it, but dad wanted to move on to something else and she dropped out. She talked about her dream of going back to college after she retired. She was a lifelong learner and a pragmatist, but she never got back to college.

She studied accountant, took a correspondence course to increase her knowledge and usefulness. she had the accountant’s interest in details. My artist brain and her accountant brain did not always mesh, but we always got on well.

In his NYTimes column this morning, Thomas Friedman talks about his mom and what she went through, ending with a story of the legendary Bear Bryant, who changed a planned television commercial for the telephone company from: Call your mother; to Call your mother, I wish I could call mine.

Friedman wishes he could call his mom, who died this last year, and I really understand.

I talk to Emily and Jessica about how much my mother would have loved them, and how much they would have loved her. Mom was tough as she needed to be, but she was soft and cuddly too. She would have been a wonderful great grandmother.

Mom made it through one daughter's wedding and a high school graduation or two, was cut way short by cancer. She retired as an accountant for the state health department, and about a year later she was gone. She was just 65.

Each day I think of mom and what a classy woman she was. Every day I wish I could talk to her about this or that. And frequently I imagine a conversation where mom would ask me about that black thing I carry in my hand.

“It’s my telephone mom, I can get calls almost everywhere I go.”

Amazing, she would say in pre-computer wonderment.

Today I will remember mom and I will hug my Jess and Em’s grandmother.

I love you Miriam, I am so glad you are the mother of my daughters and a wonderful grandmother to my grandkids.

But, I really really wish I could call my mom.