In The Blood

Five years ago, on this very day, Mom and I had our last "Happy Birthday!" phone call.  It was a twice-a-year tradition from the time Margaret and I got married.  Every year, first in February and then again in June, we would spend somewhere between forty-seven and fifty-nine seconds on the phone, during which conversation one of us would wish the other "Happy Birthday", we would check in on one another, and we would remind each other how much we loved each other.  Mom could do all that - from the heart and with meaning - in less than a minute.  

On this very day five years ago, I attained a milestone (or millstone if you prefer).  I turned fifty.  I am the youngest of six siblings so when Mom called me that evening - as Margaret and I were sitting at a bar at Bar A in Lake Como having a cocktail - I asked her if she felt any differently now that her youngest - her "baby" - had reached fifty.  She laughed, a bit nervously as I remember, before she answered, telling me that while I would always be her youngest, life had made me grow up pretty quickly and pretty early, which she had always remembered, and that she had not thought of me as her "baby" for a very, very long time; since Dad's death thirty-five-plus years earlier.  

No sooner had the words left her mouth and entered my ear than she regained her composure, repeated her birthday wishes, reiterated her love for me, for Margaret, and for our kids, said good-bye, and hung up.  I sat at the bar with the phone up to my ear for a second or two longer, smiling at the memory of what she had said.  

Four months later - to the day - Mom died.  Ten days short of her birthday.  Fifty-six months ago today.  "How much of my mother has my mother left in me?" is a question I ask myself every day.  Some days, admittedly, more than others. 

Today is such a day.  

-AK