I live in Chicago and my mother lives in St. Louis where I grew up. Christmas 2002 I gave my mother a calendar on which I’d marked one date each month as a dinner date.
So once each month I made airline reservations, flew down to St. Louis, had dinner with mom, stayed overnight, and flew back the next morning.
I came pretty close to making all of my dates.
I viewed this present as something like a husband giving his wife a bowling ball with the holes pre-drilled to fit him. I don’t think that she was deprived of my company. I think that I’m deprived of hers.
My mother is simply one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever known. She’s bright, funny, tough, caring, wise, opinionated, tactful, devout, and unfailingly meets life head-on. She was in vaudeville with her parents as a toddler and can still do her routines. She grew up in hotels and being passed from one relative to another. In her youth she was a competitive diver and swimmer and could sing opera.
Both of her parents died when she was barely out of her teens. My dad died when she was in her forties. She went back to work, got her Masters degree, put five children through college, and saw them all married and settled. She keeps in touch with the people she worked with in her first job out of teachers’ college right after World War II and joined a book club a little while ago to make new friends.
Here’s an example of the kind of woman she is. When she and my dad married in 1946, the original plan was to honeymoon in Cuba. So my mother packed for Cuba. At the last minute my dad changed his mind–they were going to Canada (this was typical). Did my mom refuse, cry, threaten to go home to mother? No. She got a sweater and had a great time. Roll with the punches.
I rely on her advice which is always freely given but never offered.
That reminds me. I’ve gotta go make an airline reservation.
