Ode to a Mother

I can't chew spearmint gum without tasting leather purses and church pews.

I can't experience a hot summer night without remembering the build-your-own chef salads we made growing up because we couldn't afford air-conditioning and there was no way in h-e-double hockey stocks that we were turning the oven on.

I remember the "I am your father" impersonations into the rattling fans, covered in the dust of a dozen years and the hope that "maybe the kids won't know how close we were to losing everything". I remember looking for "red skies in the morning" because Sarah wanted to be a meteorologist and Sarah was the good daughter, so all of us wanted to be a meteorologist, which meant we watched Twister a dozen times every summer, convinced that the slightest line of red on the weather radar meant "batten down the hatches."

I remember fighting over which kitchen stool we got to sit on, fighting over who had to eat the Raisin Bran mini-box of cereal because someone already took the Fruit Loops, the Corn Pops, the Lucky Charms and the Honey Smacks, fighting over who had to clean up the dishes. I remember you eating the Raisin Bran and telling us to go make some toast.

I remember being in third grade and I got super sick and had to go to the hospital for two weeks. You still see my third-grade teacher at the grocery store. It's been twenty-five years and you sound oddly proud to say that she still remembers me. Probably because I didn't rewind the VHS tape of ocean life that I brought to class one day and the entire class had to sit and wait for it to go back to the start before we watched it.

I remember you keeping the newspaper clippings of The Attack of the Clones so I could cut the pictures out and tape them onto my closet, since that what I saw kids do in movies. I remember you pretending to care about what I named my Bionicle creation (Ludicrous...in the unlikely case that you forgot), or pretending to care about Final Fantasy 12 because you likely spoke with your counselor about how you didn't know how to connect with your teenage son and your counselor suggested you connect with me over video games, since that's all I care(d) about.

I remember you buying the movie 300 for me without bothering to check the rating. I remember watching that movie in the back of a rental car next to my sisters on a portable DVD player while we drove through some god-forsaken part of the country to go visit your incredibly uncool parents over my 18th birthday. I know you felt bad that Sarah got to spend her 18th birthday in Rome with the school varsity choir. And I was in the UP of Michigan with my sisters, desperately trying to hide from them the scene in 300 when the main lady's boobs were bouncing up and down in Snyder slow-motion sexy time.

I remember you buying me the Italia sweatshirt at Target in Minnetonka, Minnesota because the entire varsity choir came back with legit Italia sweatshirts from...well, Italy. I just wanted to fit in. Despite the fact that it was a puke green sweatshirt, everyone knew I didn't go to Italy and I only wore it once before letting it die at the bottom of my "clean laundry pile".

You're tired now, I know. Knowing it doesn't really have much of an impact on alleviating some of that tiredness. I guess I just want you to know that I see you. I truly wish it was a restful tiredness, the graceful kind that comes with growing older and watching the four children you raised alone all end up as being "moderately well-adjusted individuals". (I don't know if I've told you about the time I got arrested, but we'll pretend you know and don't mind.)

But the part of me that wishes the universe was more fair is angry. I've been angry at the unfair universe for a long time. You don't deserve the pain. You don't deserve the debilitating weakness, the deteriorating body, the growing distance between your grown children and your grandchildren, (one of whom is obviously more adorable than the other three).

You are the reason why I hope for an afterlife based on merit. Because you deserve peace. You deserve to be without pain. I cannot give you these things, so all I can do is hope.

And send you pictures of your favorite granddaughter.