A salute to my mom

Stepping away from the political to honor my mother.

As you’re probably aware unless you chose to opt out, tomorrow is Mother’s Day. So let me tell you about my mom, ‘cause I’m proud of her.

When she had me, my mom already had a two-year-old in the house, and it wasn’t the biggest of houses: ours was a little two-bedroom bungalow in a subdivision surrounded by country fields on the outskirts of Toledo (but just down the street from a school.) My mom and dad had been married for almost four years by then, and when she became pregnant with my older brother she stopped working as a secretary to raise him, then me, then my other brother who came along 3 1/2 years later.

So we were a typical 1960s suburban family, with Dad working a union job and Mom staying home with the kids. Once my little brother came along we had to get a bigger house, so we moved a little closer into town but into a four-bedroom house. That lasted about four years until my mom and dad bought five acres in the country and built the house I spent my teenage years in. (They were tired of three active boys breaking windows in our postage-stamp yard.)

By that time, with three kids old enough to be unsupervised and a new house, my mom decided to go back to work, first at a local greenhouse then at a department store. That’s how we got the little extras we got as I was getting through high school. And did I tell you she was generally up at 5:30 a.m. with my dad, making him breakfast so he could go to work then getting our stuff together for school because our bus showed up at 10 after 7? At the other end of the day, she came to a lot of my 6:30 p.m. ballgames that were played a town or two away because our team had no home field.

So she was entitled to relax, which for her was watching her favorite shows or bowling with dad in their ma and pa league. (Once I got married, my ex and I bowled in that same league for a year, meaning all three kids were bowling in the same league as mom and dad, on four different teams.)

Eventually my brothers and I grew up and moved out, and my parents moved themselves a couple times - one of their houses eventually became my late brother’s house. When my dad finally retired, they moved to Florida close by where my grandparents retired to and lived happily ever after - until Dad got Alzheimer’s and Mom became his caregiver, just like she was for us as kids. When Dad passed away last year, it ended a 61-year marriage.

Luckily Mom’s surrounded by friends and people who care for her, since neither my brother nor I live close to her. She and I may not see eye to eye on everything, but I still love her and look forward to wishing her a happy Mother’s Day when I call her this weekend.

I may not be the perfect son, but it wasn’t for her lack of trying.