Don’t so much miss my mother, as I do so often find myself feeling good about having known her as I came to know her. When I was no longer a knucklehead – except for that second marriage – and she was an old lady who became a widow. Who dated. Who got tossed aside for a younger, more mobile woman.
Mom shopped and traveled and crushed Jeopardy every damn night. She watched the Jewelry channel, claiming it was “educational, honey.”
Think I’ll write my own obituary. Talk about my windsurfing and community service. My almost spotless criminal record. When I write my own obit, I will say something nice about my mom. She gave me my start.
“Execution drug scarcity
compounded
by industry unwillingness.”
Something
Something
about this headline
amuses me.
What a country.
What a country.
Really.
Name another nation
funnier than ours.
But I digress.
Driving home from the
Art Festival, saw a sign,
two signs,
as we pulled through the gates
of our heavily guarded retirement village.
FRIDAY. BINGO
Public Welcome!
TUESDAY BINGO
Residents & Guests Only
And so we thought of
Mom.
She was back for another stint
in rehab.
More than once as we both aged,
got the impression she
kinda liked it there.
We come bustling into her tiny private
room & we have to start moving
cause we have to eat lunch and go to
La Petit Shoppe and spend all the money
she won playing bingo.
They whisper Mom’s name
in the bingo world.
Woman is seven kinds of smart.
And, of course, I’m thinking
your funny money
can’t buy you crap,
Turns out that’s exactly what you can get.
Mom insisted I pick something for myself.
Chose a little ceramic curled-up
puppy. Made from where
the Chinese get their stuff made.
A cherished momento today,
I can tell you.
Finally couldn’t help myself,
“Mom, you are the only bingo player
not suffering from a traumatic
brain injury.”
I get a look.
She gives me a look.
You should have seen that
grin.
So today, driving down the boulevard
of suddenly-summer,
I wondered aloud how
she could play all that
bingo
when she was doing all that
community service.
Inside joke.
Mom – of course –
wrote her own obit.
Which reminded us of our daughter.
I get this second-hand,
she’s a beautiful woman
think Sex In The City
so I can believe
a Homecoming Queen
who – of course – wrote her own bio.
“Loves to windsurf.”
Turns out she had surfed once.
Briefly.
I have raced elephants
more often than that.
Truly.
And then there’s our son
think young Larry The Cable Guy
he’s country,
maybe Paul Blart Mall Cop.
I say that with love.
Get this second-hand too –
he reminds me of
me –
he’s in the second grade,
Mother’s Day is upon them
and the teacher is asking all
the kids,
“What do you love most
about your mom?”
Can’t believe
he’s not my own blood.
Second grade.
“She’s got big boobs.”