She's great!
And, if I didn't say so, she'd kick my ass.
I'n blessed she's still here ... at my age I'm blessed with lots of things ... but my Mother runs circles around me ... and honestly can kick my ass any time she chooses ... without lifting a finger ... cause she's got the look.
You remember the "Look."
Your Mother has one too.
It freezes you instantly because you know ... you're in deep.
And if you're a Mother, you have the "Look" too but your Mother's "Look" far exceeds your "Look" as you still try to emulate hers.
But My Mom, I have to say, is quite the remarkable woman.
It's hard to know where to begin ... her career began when we were broke and Dad's paycheck wasn't enough so she got a job as a secretary at a Credit Union ... moved to a bank ... learned the trade ... became a loan originator ... broke all the records men held ... made more money than the Bank President one year ... broke glass ceilings for women ... refused to accept the "Originator of the Year" award once because it was a man on the plaque so they had it redone ... with a woman ... in a mini-skirt ... which Mom thought fair ... so she brought it home.
I could go on and on about my Mom.
She did a lot.
Won lots of plaques.
My Dad sold them all one day when she was gone.
He made a lot of money off them.
She still hasn't forgiven him ... though he died a decade ago.
"What would you've done with them?" I asked her.
"I dunno," she laughs. "Who needs a bunch of plaques from the past?"
This is what I remember most about "me Mum" ... as I say ... is once when I was a kid ... little ... though I don't recall how little ... she picked me up and slammed my butt on the kitchen table ... and cupping her hands around my chin ... intense blues eyes looking in blues ... she snaps!
"Let me tell you something Micheal" and her voice is stern and hard and full of conviction, "you ... are ... going ... to ... be ... great! ... that's your life! ... GREAT!"
And she kisses me, leaving my feet dangling towards the floor they couldn't reach.
Over the remaining "formative years" she tells me this a lot ... grabbing me by the shoulders ... slamming my ass on the kitchen table ... cupping my chin in the palms of her hands ... blues staring into blues .., and her clam, steady voice says, "You're great! You're gonna be great!"
I dunno how great I've been but ... I've done a lot of cool stuff.
The best though is I'm Sarah's husband.
I've seen and done lots of great things in my life ... but the greatest is being Sarah's husband.
She's a mother.
Six daughters and a boy ... five grand kids ... our love is mostly moving parts ... it's hard to keep up ... mostly with each other.
I marvel at her mothering.
She's great!
As liberal as I am ... and I'm very liberal ... I'm far more conservative with the girls than she.
I don't trust them.
They'll get in trouble like I did when Mom wasn't slamming my ass on the kitchen table to tell me how great I'm going to become.
Sarah trusts them.
She lets them make their own mistakes where I try to save them from happening.
That take far more strength than I've got.
Sarah lets 'em fall flat on their faces if they're stupid enough to not listen to her in the first place, then she'll ask, "Well are going to do that again?"
And they don't!
How does she do that?
It makes no sense whatsoever.
Though her parental philosophy has obviously had an impact on me too.
They come to me sometimes, "Mike, if I tell you something, will you not tell Mom?"
"Are you out of your frigging mind?" I answer. "No way in Hell I'm hiding anything you say from her. I'll tell you what ... why don't you go ahead and tell me and I'll let you know how fast you need to tell her."
Sometimes they tell me anyway.
I always tell Sarah.
It's a train wreck but we keep on keeping on and like most Mother/Son and Mother/Daughter relationships ... it's complicated.
Which brings me to Jesus and his Mom.
Mary drove her boy crazy.
He ran away from home when he was twelve.
I ran away when I was 3 or 4 ... Mom says I packed some diapers and a six-shooter ... tied them in a kerchief at the end of the broom and walked away from it all.
Three houses later she asks, "Where you going Mike?"
"Running away," I tell her.
"Want to go to the store with Mom?"
I got in.
When Mary found her son Jesus in hiding out in the Temple, she was angry, let him know it and he dismisses her immediately.
Mary even gave Jesus "the Look" and he obviously didn't care.
"Why'd you bother looking for me?" he asks, "You should have known I'd be here."
My Mother would have slapped me a new one!
Years later they're at a wedding and they run out of wine.
Like many of us, Mary obviously attended weddings for the wine.
When they ran out, she asks her son to get more.
"I don't have my ID with me," he answers, which is very feasible translation of the original Greek.
She "guilt's" him into it and, like a lot of sons with their mothers, Jesus overcompensates making way more than is needed ... everyone gets drunk, including Mary, and Jesus sneaks out.
The next time Mary approaches her son, Jesus is riding high, drawing big crowds ... making it on his own.
Mary says, "Tell him his Mamma's here and wants to see him."
"Who?" Jesus asks.
Mary insists ... "I'm his Mother. He wants to see me."
"Every woman here is my Mother," Jesus says to everyone except his Mom.
He keeps on working and Mary has no choice but to leave and go home alone.
The last time Mary sees her boy, he's hanging on the cross dying.
Through the pain, Jesus sees her and says, "Behold your son."
Then he sees a friend of his standing beside Mary and says to him, "Behold your Mother" ... and he gives his Mom away to a new family ... and he dies ... and Mary goes home with the friend.
She's mentioned one last time in the Bible ... in Acts, after Jesus is raised from the dead ... she's with her family and the Disciples ... devoted in prayer.
Whatever it was the Apostles believed, Mary did too.
That's all we get out of the Biblical accounts.
But here's what I think.
When his feet couldn't reach the floor after Mary sat him on the kitchen table to look in his eyes and say, "You ... are ... great!"
And even when Jesus blew off his Mother, she trusted him, let him go his own way, get in trouble she couldn't save him from and become what God intended all along.
There were things she did well ... others she could have done a lot better ... but, to this say, she the reason behind one of my favorite prayers ... "Holy Mary, Mother of God!"
Because in spite of how many issues she and the boy had ... and they obviously had several ... there was a love shared ... and love saves the world ... and if we're lucky we let it save us too.
