Happy Day, you Mothers

Funny how it never really occurred to me until afterwards.

But you were always there for us, even when we - well, I - were rotten little bastards. You loved us, cared for us, corrected us when we were wrong and praised us when we did right.

You were a classic Fifties corporate wife and mother, but at the same time you were your own self; amateur actress, teacher, social liberal, mentor, confidant. Cubs fan - my childhood summers will forever be narrated by the sound of Jack Brickhouse drifting out of the big windows on the sunporch where you knit and listened and cursed the Amazin' Mets.

You did all that a worthy person does; you lived an upright and honorable life, you raised your children to do and be the best they could do and be, and you died full of years and honor.

I love and miss you, mom.

Margot Carol McMillan Lawes, 1926-2018

Half a word

Today is "Mother's Day" and, like all these sorts of Hallmark-Card-type holidays the importance is purely in the outlook of the individuals concerned.

My bride likes to be cosseted on Mother's Day.

The problem was that this weekend was ALSO the Boy's eleventh birthday party, so Saturday the house was utterly insane with adolescent-boy energy. Mojo had to do a lot of the birthday-partying because I indulged myself and went to our Portland Thorns match, where I was well-served for my faithlessness when the wenches from Seattle shocked us in the 89th minute and sent us all home disappointed.

So Sunday morning I got up and wrestled the kiddos into submission so the Bride could sleep until ten. Then the urchins and I went out to "Presents of Mind" down on Hawthorne and got her some sweet (or funny) cards, a bar of fancy soap, and a vanilla-scented car air freshener (don't ask, the Boy's idea...). And came home and gave her the treats, and hugs, and then she got a foot massage...

...and went back to sleep.

Finally I made her a chorizo-and-mushroom omlette and went out to mow the lawn and help the Boy out back to assemble his soccer kick-back net.

And that was this year's Mother's Day.

Frankly, I think the whole "Mother's Day" macguffin is just a ridiculous commercial gimmick to sell more crap. But I love my Bride dearly, and she is as much Mother now as she was Lover when we met, she is utterly crucial to our children's lives - both for her gentle love and her fierce expectations - and since our children are now a central part of our lives together regardless of the silly "holiday", for her, and for me, every day is a mother's day.

Parthenogensis

Yes, Proctor & Gamble is one of the Lesser Satans. Yes, the Olympics has become a loathsome concatenation of greed and cupidity. Yes, advertising in general is the Devil's Siren Song.That said, every so often the wrong people, for the wrong reasons, say something very touching. And this is one of those times.

You don't have to have a child hoping to be an Olympic athlete to appreciate the little fable recounted here. Just think of your own mother or father and the lifetime you and they have spent building. Or your own son or daughter.

I think the best description of the entire business of taking an embryo and producing a man or a woman I've ever read comes from a very sad little science fiction story called Aftermaths by Lois McMaster Bujold. The setting is what amounts to a graves registration party recovering the bodies of those killed in a naval engagement in deep space. The speaker is laying out the body of a young enemy soldier that her assistant has reviled as "garbage".

"Not at all" said the medtech. "Think of all the work he represents on somebody's part. Nine months of pregnancy, childbirth, two years of diapering, and that's just the beginning. Tens of thousands of meals, thousands of bedtime stories, years of school. Dozens of teachers. And all that military training, too. A lot of people went into the making of him."

She smoothed a strand of the corpse's hair into place.

"That head held a universe, once. He had a good rank for his age."

I think you know of our struggles with children and parenting. I have no idea of yours, but I do know that there is no such thing as "easy". So on this ridiculous corporate fiction "Mother's Day" let me just say that there is a virtue in doing the right things, even if they are done in a parlous way, in a difficult place, for the wrong reasons and for no better excuse than hope and desperation. The grace is in the doing, and not in the hope of reward.

Mother's Day Gifts

So when Little Missy went off this morning at 6:30 (having done the same at 1:30 and driven the Peeper out to the living room couch, which he did without demur - noble lad!) I staggered in, picked her up and transported her to Nirvana, or Mom-and-Dad's-bed, which comes to the same thing in Missyworld, there to drowse on into the early forenoon.

First Peeper, then Missy and then parents finally roused, sort-of, and were all lolling about in the family bed when Missy, lying on her tummy but coiled, like a puissant viper, launched herself and drove the top of her head into Mommy's face.Both children were sobered as Mommy flailed out of bed, hands to her lip muffling her cries of agony. We had a little session where I tried to teach Missy to say "Sorry, Mama". She didn't - she is very resistant to repeating the little phrases you say to her - but looked very chastened, and went and patted her mom where she sat in the kitchen icing her lip.

Then both kids had big poops.

Everybody is fine. Mojo is having her morning coffee, I'm down here recounting the morning to you, and the kids are playing with trains. But the gifts of the day have already been distributed. Motherhood: blood and shit.

There you have it. Like combat, except without artillery to add tone to the vulgar brawl.

To all you moms and non-mom moms: happy fucking mother's day.