Mom died 5 years ago today from common old age problems. I miss her as a friend. She "mothered" me for 18 years, and she became more of a friend after that. Does that seem strange?
For almost my entire adult life (18-55), we corresponded almost weekly. She and I are writers, and letters were our "talk". We both loved words, their origins, and their changing meanings. It runs in her side of the family; one of her sisters worked on a major dictionary. If there was a pun to be made, we made it. If there was some older meaning of a word, we played it.
It ended 5 years before she died. She could no longer write even with the help of a machine. I suppose it didn't matter, her mind was going wrong along with her fingers. The last 5 years, she couldn't communicate. I kept writing letters that Dad read to her until he said she couldn't understand anything anymore.
I miss her as my Mom. But I miss her as my friend more. I don't want that to sound wrong. Its just that we had a special similar sense of humor-wordplay, and top-this-doggeral poem that lasted for so many years..
I got my sense of the dramatic from her. When she was middle-aged, the social group she was in had theme parties. One was Wild Hats. Mom had Dad take a straw hat and add a big plywood ring around it. She took our Ben-Hur chariot set and glued them around the ring. First Prize! I learned from that.
Thanks for everything, Mom... I carry on the tradition.
2 comments:
You know, I complete;y understand. One day my own three sons will say the same thing but with a different slant. Never the less, I understand. We four share a love of words and some of those words have special and humorous meaning to us. All four of us loved The Far Side. SO wish the creator of that strip (he even had a movie of the strip on TV..what an honor) had not folded his tent if you will and stopped creating. We are quirky ourselves.
But from their childhood on, we have our own way of speaking~~ using some words and phrases that have meaning just to us. They will miss me when I'm gone but I bet they will carry the tradition on. We have laughed till tears flowed over some of the sillier things especially when the conversation went to the currant at the time, cat we had.
I can also relate. My late father was quick with a witty riposte and had lots of jokes and puns. He lost that a year or two before he died, and I missed it very much.
Megan
Sydney, Australia
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