Archive for the ‘All in the family’ Category

"I want to play in there!"

“I’d kick it, but then coffee would get all over my pants.” And mine, so thanks for not kicking the coffee…Mom.

You may think this was a mature decision made by a seven-year-old, except it’s what my septagenarian mother said to me Saturday morning upon spotting a Starbucks cup sitting upright near my car in the parking lot at Kmart.

This is the world my mother lives in, and it’s a lovely place filled with childish deeds and happy thoughts. 

For example, when I showed my mother (whom we call “Hommy” because my niece wasn’t able to pronounce “Grammy”) this photo of her grandson playing in the snow fort he made in our front yard after Snowmeggedon 3…

…which of the following do you think was her response?

a. “My, he is a clever boy.”
b. “Wow, that’s a lot of snow.”
c. “I want to play in there!”

(For the correct answer, see: Starbucks cup, kick.)

This is the woman who, upon being dared by my high school BFF Diane to do a back-flip off the diving board at her pool, she did it. Of course, that was a quarter century ago. She doesn’t do back-flips off the diving board anymore, though I suspect that’s simply because my parents no longer have a diving board at their pool.  Instead, my mother jumps in the pool in her clothes and attacks us with her Super Soaker, affectionately entitled “The Hominator” by her grandchildren.

Her ability to see the bright side of things is unsurpassed, except perhaps by cartoon characters on PBS Kids. When I took my mother one rainy morning to her doctor’s appointment in a windowless office in Manhattan, she exclaimed mid-appointment, “I’ll bet the sun is out now!”

“Yes, Mom,” I mimicked a super-enthusiastic announcer from Blues Clues Live. “And the birds are singing, and the roads are paved with gold!”

Her chief complaint for her doctor that day: She could no longer dance the Charleston anymore. Pardon me, I forgot to mention it was her Parkinson’s doctor, who confessed to never hearing such a complaint before. But then my mom had moved on complaining that she gets tired after she plays paddle tennis in 20 degree weather. Her doctor, who is maybe half my mother’s age, answered wide-eyed, “I probably would be, too.” But by then Hommy was demonstrating her inadequate Charleston.

We can’t keep up.

Next visit I’ll point out that though my mother can no longer dance the Charleston (which was in vogue before she was even born, so what’s the issue? Never mind…), she can kick cups of coffee and climb into snow forts. At least, she wants to, anyhow, and that’s more than I can say for most people her age — or my age, or any age past puberty.

My mother’s world is a wonderful place to visit where no one ages, and everyone drops by to say hello. While we were out on Saturday, she ran into three friends on three separate occasions, all who were thrilled to see her.

In my mother’s world, she stumbles upon an entire aisle of books at Kmart exclaming, “I just finished my book last night, and here’s one I want to read!”

In my mother’s world, the glass isn’t half-full, it’s overflowing.

Look out, she might kick it.

Share, share, that’s fair: Got an optimist in your family tree? Or maybe a pessimist? Tell us a story about him or her.

By the time we decided to have our picture taken atop the ski mountain, my toes were near frozen — this, despite the toe warmers in my ski boots. That’s my excuse for why I started to slide backwards on my skis right when my brother, Scott, was about to snap a photo of my son, Chris, and me: (more…)

By the time the boys in front of me at church yesterday got to “forgive us our trespasses,” they really needed it. The older one, likely a college kid, was digging his fingers into his younger brother’s hand throughout much of “The Lord’s Prayer,” a time when we’re all supposed to join hands and ask to be delivered from evil. But on the last day of the holiday break, at least for his high school-aged brother, perhaps they were both being a little evil. I know the feeling. (more…)

Back then, I could keep up with him on the soccer field more easily.

He was 18, and I had no business being there. It was too much, too soon, and yet, I didn’t want to leave.

I was playing right defense on my brother Scott’s “over-the-hill” soccer team, guarding a kid who’d tagged along with his dad so he could get ready for his league match later that day. Apparently, dribbling around me – a middle-aged mother of two who was not quite a year in remission from an aggressive form of lymphoma – was this kid’s warm-up. For me though, just standing on the turf field in my soccer cleats so soon after completing six rounds of chemotherapy and five weeks of radiation was a comeback. Or it was supposed to be. (more…)

I keep having this nagging feeling that I’ve forgotten something — something that would need to be wrapped by Thursday night. How can it be that my Christmas shopping took me exactly one trip to Target and a few clicks of my mouse? What — or who — am I forgetting? (more…)

I’m convinced that my mother has a secret compartment in the back of her closet that opens to a room filled with filing cabinets. There, men in visors type feverishly on old fashioned typewriters until my mother appears at the back of her closet to make a request for, say, a brochure from her 2006 trip to Canada or the Playbill from Bye Bye Birdie — the original 1960 production as well as the latest Broadway revival. (more…)

I am still recuperating from my Kiss Cancer Goodbye fundraiser and remission party held here in Kinnelon, NJ, on Friday night. (Note to my oncologist: Warn your patients not to dance barefoot at their remission parties. I still can’t feel my toes.) I’m going to extend the celebration a little longer by going to the Bruce Springsteen concert with my brother tonight. So, until I sort out my thoughts and my photos, I will sum up the evening with this most spectacular photo of my mother performing live with the Flying Mueller Brothers:

The clock in the hallway at the hospital also displayed the date: July 30th. It flashed it over and over and over as though it was taunting me: “You’re never going to make it to November 1st with that baby.” After the ultrasound, my doctor said the baby, my second, probably weighed about 2 pounds. And yet, he wanted to come out then, 11 weeks premature. (more…)