MOTHER’S DAY LADY REVIEW

After one miss on Mother’s Day with sick kids, I never missed another.

During the phone call to tell her about missing she decided to tell me the nuts and bolts of my adventurous conception.

The date, the name of the motel, the works.

What mom doesn’t share that story?

I’ve since stayed in the same motel and written her a thank-you note on the room stationary.

She countered with a picture of her and Grandma posing under the motel sign. One in a million, lemme tell ya.

Fiesty.

My mom was the daughter of a single mother in the late 30’s and early 40’s.

Late 30’s and early 40’s? Divorce?

From the sound of things, men in those days wanted their little wifey at home with the off-spring while they prowled for their next side chick.

The way things played out, one man’s little wifey wasn’t typical, drew the line, which he ignored while stepping over and back at will, then chopped it.

That was my grandma and her little girl, my mom, both in the mix with grandma’s family of six brothers and three sisters.

To say grandma was a determined woman is not enough. She didn’t like the gap in her front teeth, the family couldn’t afford braces, so she pushed them together on her own.

She told that story and topped it off by touching her tongue to her nose.

 

One Mother’s Journey

At ten years old my mom moved from Dallas, Texas to Orofino, Idaho after Grandma married an airman before he went to WWII for two years.

She met Grandpa at a USO dance, got married in a hurry, and celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary down the line.

Grandpa’s mean mom lived in Orofino where they waited until he returned.

Grandma got a job, mom went to school. I’ve tried and failed to imagine how bad life in Dallas must have been to jump to Orofino sight unseen.

Not long after his return from the South Pacific, my mom welcomed two brothers.

She became the baby sitter in her spare time that turned into all the time, which is to say she didn’t have an ordinary childhood.

By sixteen the family lived in Ryderwood, Washington and she was graduating from high school after skipping grades.

A bubbly girl in some pictures, glamorous in others, she had the look of someone with a promising future ahead of her.

Everything had to be easier after Orofino, right?

 

The Kids On Mother’s Day

My mom was a go-getter like the Manning boys.

 

During junior high school the varsity football team is awful. Can’t seem to win a game.

The team is whipped and beat week after week.

During warm up drills before a home game one player came out on the field late.

They didn’t take a three point stance and knock heads or go with the skill guys and practice catching the ball.

Instead they stood behind the lineman and kicked them in the butt before the snap.

They stood next to the receivers and smacked them while the ball was in the air.

One of your friends ran over to the team bench and back with the news.

That player kicking and slapping? It’s your mom in full gear, even a mouth guard. Where’d she get the mouth guard? It was one of yours.

She was a motivator, and ass kicker in name and action.

Any mom tough enough to take the field is a mom to pay attention to.

With her help we should have made it to the NFL, but I’m not complaining.

She was fired up to see things change, and if they didn’t change enough? Well she’d so what she saw as ‘her part.’

 

In the top picture you can see newly wed me and my wife posing like Lewis and Clark.

“This way, honey. They look like friendly natives.”

That’s the mom of my kids.

We’ve always had high hopes for them, and continue to this day.

They are two of the few men I enjoy spending time with, along with their wives and kids.

As a whole it feels like the circle of life where I’m doing that thing all Grandparents do:

Slow it the fuck down.

One day you’re in the middle of a home-birth delivery holding your tiny baby before their first breath, the next you’re napping with a different tiny baby with your son nearby.

On this Mother’s Day give a tip of the hat to Mom’s new and old, near and far, present and away.

I remember my own father’s words of wisdom after he was in the room for his last child’s birth:

“If I’d been in the room for the first one there wouldn’t have been anymore.”

Ah, the sweet mystery of life. Happy Mother’s Day to the most important people on earth.

And may they regain their legal right to choose what to do with their bodies. Come on, Moms.

My Grandmother would approve of this post; so would my Ma; so does my wife, for the sweep.