In our modern world, you constantly hear women bemoaning their mothers. I’ve never understood that and I never will because my mom is awesome. She is so awesome that even when I was a teenager and had the inalienable right to roll my eyes at everything she said and did, I couldn’t because even at that stupid age, I could tell she had her sh** together.
She celebrated her 81st birthday a few weeks ago. Technically, she’s a little old lady. Her shoulders and knees don’t work like they’re supposed to but there’s nothing dull or frail about her. She will still beat you senseless at cards or scrabble and pick a fight with the officials at a football game.
I was at a funeral a few years ago where the brother of the deceased knew my mom. It was obvious the man had a serious, decades long crush on her.
An old photograph has recently turned up on her fridge. It’s a color picture of Mom and Dad on vacation in Hawaii in the spring of ’67. They are standing on a beach and both are young and fit. Mom is in a swimsuit and she looks like she’s about a size six, with a flat tummy. I bring this up because in the spring of ’67, my brother Andy was four months old.
Andy is my parent’s seventh child.
I stood looking at this photo of my mother, slim, fit and toned in a swimsuit on Waikiki, four months after delivering her seventh baby.
I turned to her and said “I’ve never hated you as much as I do right now.”
“That’s the best compliment anyone’s ever given me!” she laughed.
I keep hoping that someday, someday, I’ll grow up to be just like my mom.