Happy birthday to you
My mother will celebrate her 90th birthday Wednesday. The Mister queried, "Well, that's pretty old, isn't it?" Yes, it is. I ordered up a big bouquet of flowers in plenty of time and called her Sunday to get my best wishes in before my siblings.
She still lives at home (a four-bedroom ranch style house with enough yard to keep a cow), goes into Chicago with various groups to the symphony, theater, or museums, and figures her own income taxes. My dad was a college professor and she stays active with a group of university retirees
Several years ago she gave up driving her car because of a minor fender bender when she was struck by a driver who ran a stop sign. Even though she was not at fault, she thought she was just not alert enough to have avoided the mishap and conceded she might have reached an age where she was a danger to others. She and my dad had been with the same insurance company since the 1940s and that was the first claim ever filed. We kids thought she should go ahead and drive. She thought otherwise
She keeps me and my brother and sister in line. (And people wonder why I have this "attitude.")
She tells me when she thinks my sarcasm is unbecoming (most of the time during most of my life). I don't need to wonder what she thinks about my hairstyle, my clothes, my kids, or my housekeeping. She always tells me.
Before she visits I hire my own children to come help me deep clean because I know this hovel will not be up to snuff. She is the woman who once spent several hours with a jug of Clorox and Q-Tips swiping out the folds of the rubber gasket on my refrigerator doors because there was some kind of dark grunge in there. None of us had ever even noticed! (And I didn't tell her we had a freezer in the basement with a gasket full of the same stuff.) I never knew that occasionally I should take the front plate off of my thermostat and sweep the dust off the dial. Who even knew that the front plate came off? Or that there might be dust behind it? And who cares anyway? She does. I don't.
But she always thought I should write and she now is glad that I have "finally found my calling." I'm not so sure about that, but she thinks it is so; she thinks I have found my niche. I guess it must be so since she is never wrong.
She forgives me all those things for which moms usually forgive their children. I am a crummy housekeeper (it's not her fault, she tried), I am a lousy cook (it's not her fault, she tried), I don't know squat about managing money (it's not her fault, she tried), and I should have gotten this job years ago (it's not her fault, she tried.) Thankfully, she no longer reminds me of major errors I made in high school and college. I know she remembers, but these days there are more important things to discuss.
Ninety is a venerable age. I'm glad she made it. I'm glad that she is in good health and that her mind is still sharp. Someone has to keep me in line. Happy birthday, Mom.
— SUSAN MARSHALL
