Mother’s Day — Remembering Mom

Of course it doesn’t need to be Mother’s Day to remember Mom. Our parents are always with us.

Today, I was walking my dog around the Catawba campus when a guy called to me from his screened porch, saying hello, ‘how’s it going?’

I haven’t been walking as much lately as I used to (and certainly not as much as I need to). I’m not sure how long he’s lived there, but he’s one of those neighbors, three blocks down, who I’ve never really met. We’ve never really talked. He’s sort of a friendly, hello-how-are-you neighbor.

Through the dark screens and in the dusky light, I couldn’t see him. I could only see the porch. I stopped for a minute of conversation. We talked about the weather. The sky was getting dark and the wind was blowing. I realized I better not go far. It was going to storm.

He said the rain tonight will make for a beautiful tomorrow, for Mother’s Day. He was excited. He said he would be doing the cooking and he had big plans for that meal. I heard a woman’s laughter. I asked if he was with his wife — the mom — right then? He said yes, he was with his wife and daughter — all on the porch together, watching the approach of the storm and waiting for Mother’s Day. (As I said, I couldn’t see anything but screen).

At that moment, I got present to the gift of Mother — and I looked across Innes Street, and through the vacant lot, and caught a glimpse, in the distance, of the house I grew up in. The house my mom built and raised her five children in.

Tomorrow, Alicia and I are having breakfast with my son, Aaron. A Mother’s Day celebration in the present.

But I came home from that walk thinking about the past, and my own mom. What can I say on my blog about Mom?

So I went to Google and found a few of her columns. She passed away a year and a half ago, but there’s an authenticity in her writing that had me get connected to who she was. A great way to remember her on this Mother’s Day.

Where did all those years go? A goodbye column. She wrote this about a month after she had been shell-shocked by retirement. I’m moved by how clear it is, considering that her Alzheimer’s was clearly present by now.

Return to Russia: 20 years of change I went to Russia and Latvia with my parents in April of 1998, along with my sister Susie, and cousins Laura, Steve, Judy, and Ethel. It’s a fitting story for Mother’s Day, since she talks of her own mother (my grandmother, Bubie).

Mom becomes queen for a day Really small world. Here’s another story appropriate for Mother’s Day. I never knew Mom wrote this or knew Tiffiany. Tiffiany has been cutting my hair, and doing Alicia’s hair, for many years in various salons.  She’s a great friend, and currently a Coffee News customer of ours and owner of Cool Nogginz, an awesome salon in Spencer. Tiffiany also did the hair for my film, Coffee Therapy — which required getting up really early in the morning.

Notes from the sandwich generation A blog I wrote about Mom when she moved out of her house.

———-Addendum: a few family mother pictures———-