Mutha

It’s Mother’s Day and both of mine – biological and spiritual – are gone. I no longer grieve but they do routinely pop into my bean.

Thing is, I don’t believe in ghosts. But I see them all the time.
~ Sherman Alexie, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

I was in Saint Fratelli’s the other day – of course I was – and the place was crowded with ghosts. The Amazing Bob was there. NATURALLY! We’d hit the Saint on good days and bad (but especially on the less than stellar), walk through the door, stop and remind each other to breathe in deeply – take in that iced, golden air, let it hit our souls and then breathe out. We’d treat ourselves – TAB to half moons and me to some lovely lemon biscotti.

That brings me to Lucy who regularly baked biscotti AND pizzellis. MMMMMMMMMMM! I was horribly wounded that she never had time for me and didn’t get me AT ALL but OH those cookies!

And also, Mary Ann because I can SO see us standing there, gazing into the display case, debating which baked piece of heaven would have the fewest calories and DOES that really matter?

It seems all the quotes and poems I find  on mothers are paeans to selfless, wonderful ones. Mine wasn’t – not to me anyway.  Yes, this all gets back to Alexie's memoir. So far, he seems to be the only writer with a mega complicated mother/child relationship. How can this be? The world is rife with women who maybe shoulda thought twice before reproducing. Elizabeth Bathory, Belle Gunness, Catherine de Medici and, fer fuck’s sake, Kate Gosselin come to mind.

Lucy really wasn’t a wicked mother – most def not in those Big Bad Mom pro leagues. I was her Syndrigast offspring. She was much, much better with a couple of my non-Syndrigast siblings.

Sibling Rivalry

Yes, my mother was a better mother
To my sisters and brothers,

But they were better children

Than me, the prodigal who yearned
And spurned and never returned.
~ Sherman Alexie, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

I am so grateful to Mister Alexie for putting his complicated relationship into words – prose and poetry.

On this day, as every year, I ask myself, am I happy that I didn’t have kids? My neuro docs warned me that I really shouldn’t get up the spout – that the hormonal tsunami would inflate the bastid tumors and bring on deafness and death well before they were due on stage. So, I was very careful and didn’t allow bun planting in my oven.

Yes, adoption could've happened. I chose not to. Why? Being a parent was never a burning desire of mine (that was mia madre’s wish for me). I figured if I was gonna be any good at it, wanting to be one was a bottom line essential.

Me? I aspired to Auntie-hood. I think that's where my talent dwells.