Now I’m way past the age of my Mom getting on to me but that doesn’t stop her when she wants to get on to me.
So she did.
I was talking to her on the phone standing on the Beloved Back Deck when said, “I need to tell you something.”
“Shit,” I thought to myself. “I’m in trouble.”
Throughout my life when Mom starts “I need to tell you something,” I was normally in trouble.
I always liked it a lot more when Mom looked at Angi or David and told them that she needed to tell them something.
Now that was fun!
When directed at me though … not so much.
I do believe that I still hold the family record for being spoken to by my Mom in her attempt to orchestrate “pre-emptive strikes” or, as in most cases if I’d already done it, “corrective activity.”
Let’s recount the top five, shall we?
(1) When Robert Mixon, Gene Prevatt and I stole every flag from the Port Wentworth Elementary School so the next morning no one could say the “Pledge of Allegiance.”
(2) The night I snuck out of my bedroom to go dancing and was run over by four college kids on their way to Florida for the first time in their lives, shattering my leg and putting me in the hospital for months. She wanted to put me on restriction but I was in traction.
(3) When Robert Mixon, Gene Prevatt and I stole all of the fire extinguishers out of the company on the other side of the viaduct and the police brought me home from softball practice to inform Mom while she was cooking supper.
(4) The night Mom and Dad left me in charge of the house while they went away for a romantic night and I hosted the party of all parties along with my brother David who was found hiding under the bed when the Port Wentworth Police Department showed up … I think that we just had stuck Age in a drawer … it’s kind of foggy … she was there when Mom and Dad left and there when they returned early from their trip but I have no recollection of her at all in between).
(5) When Robert Mixon, Gene Prevatt and I orchestrated a photograph at the “Root Beer Drive In” of black and white kids dressed as 1950s “Greasers” and I’m sitting on the roof of the car in a black cut off tee with my arm around Debbie Hendrix flipping a finger at the photographer and it ended up being a full page photo in my High School annual.
(6) I know I said Top 5 … but the memories are flooding back now and are overwhelming me … the night Mom and Dad were chaperoning the Mercer Middle School Dance and I started dancing with the black girl in the middle of the black side of the room and never came back to the other side. It was big stuff back then.
Ah … good times.
Not so much for my Mom!
After each of these things she would look at me sternly and say, “I need to tell you something.”
“Shit,” I’d say.
But, she stuck with me.
And she still does.
So I’m standing on the Beloved Back Deck and she’s giving me shit …, er … I mean … engaging in “corrective activity” … over a blog I wrote last week.
“You’re starting all of this new work,” she said, “you can’t write about having staff meetings on your back deck without wearing a shirt or confusing Bar Church with Bra Church. That is just … unacceptable.”
I was looking at the thousand shades of green in the trees searching for some guidance.
“Mom,” I finally said.
It never worked before.
I’m not certain what possessed me to think it would work now.
So she finished telling me what she what she wanted me to do and I said something clever like, “Yes Mam.”
I’m a big believer that life is a gift. It’s one that all of us share though none of us asked for. It’s ours to do with what we want. To share with whoever we wish to share it with … and to withhold from those that we don’t.
None of us know how long the gift of life last or how long the gift of others we love in our lives last either. That’s what makes it a gift to be celebrated every second that we have it.
And I’ve had this gift of this Mom. She’s put up with a lot. She’s also seen a lot. And she just keeps on keeping on.
And I love you Mom.
Happy Mother’s Day
