A Mother's Pride

My longstanding instinct when anyone asks how my mother is, is to say "crazy".  It's always been tough discerning antics from bonafide symptoms with that one.  I could say that anyone who's taken the time to have (and more or less raise) 9 children might be expected to be a little off her game but she did follow the rules printed in the manual:  be fruitful and multiply.

Mother has always had an interesting approach.  She once came home dismayed over the cost of replacing the side view mirror on her car without expressing any concern over who or what she'd sideswiped to lose the thing.  When I was a smoker, she'd cough at the mere sight of a pack of matches to register disapproval.

Her most recent habit is to call my sister hinting that if she was going to the store, but only if she was going!, she needs milk, or bread, or something.  My sister dutifully drops what she's doing and shows up with the requested item to be greeted with "I guess you never thought to bring dessert".  With a nun in the family, there must be paperwork she can start to put my sister on the road to sainthood.

It's never easy to tell which mother you'll get.  One day it's "I had such a good sleep" and another it's "I had a vision last night" and then you have to settle in.  Unsettling.

I pay little attention to the higher power my mother's always inciting but knowing she'd most likely be impressed with a call from Rome, I did just that to say hi and let her know I was at that moment looking up at the Papal apartment from St. Peter's Square.   She was truly amazed, with how clear the phone connection was.

For lasting impact, I bought her some jewellery in the Eternal City thinking this might hold some higher stead.  I could almost hear her pride-sinning to her friends  "My son bought it for me in Rome!".  Instead, she promptly lost the necklace and said "You can get me another one".

I wrote a travelogue of my recent vacation and emailed it to my sisters.  One of them printed it off and gave a copy to my mother.  Now this impressed her!  She even wrote me an old tyme letter to tell me:  "We were amazed, it is so well done.  Isn't it wonderful what people can do if given half a chance?"

There's no telling what's going on in that mind from minute to minute but I suppose I should just thank her for the 'half a chance'.