It has been nearly 8 months since my mother passed away. Don’t worry. This won’t be a sad or depressing conversation between us, a couple of virtual best friends. If anything, I plan on bringing a smile to your face today. Sure, it may be laced with regret or fraught with the realization of life’s tendency to cut deeply while flying by at frightening speed. I hope, when we’re finished talking, you’ll call your mom, if you’re fortunate enough to still have one. If not, know that there is safety and comfort in our numbers, we who are motherless, fatherless, or both. Perhaps you will look through old photographs or watch a home movie or two. Maybe you’ll sniff back a few tears and call your adult children to say, “Humor me. I just wanted to hear your voice. Trust me, you should commit mine to memory, too. One day, you’ll be glad I told you to do this.” I am unsure of my big feelings today. Are they so close to the surface of my heart because we have all thrown caution to the wind? As of late, we seem to be screaming powerful F bombs at the viruses and the poxes and the heat. We have taken to the streets again, armed with weapons of loneliness and the need to replenish all the hugs we missed out on for so long. It has been good to see people. Along the way, so many of you have shared a Marsha story with me. They all have things in common, these tall tales of my mother. They are spicy. They are generally hilarious. They are so Marsha. Just last week, I ran into an old friend of my late daughter. We parted with hugs, promises to stay in touch, and one question from her to me. “Remember the time your mom made that sign?” Oh, Lordy. I had forgotten about the sign. Grab a cup of coffee. If you were here, I’d offer you some homemade banana bread. See, there’s no rushing a really good story. And, this is one you don’t want to miss.
At one point in time, somewhere in the mid to late 90s, my mother bought a house. It was such an accomplishment for her. I just used up 25 minutes of my day to author a math word problem that took me from how old momma was when I was born, multiplied by the age of my oldest son when she moved into her house, divided by how long it would take a train full of apples to drive backward to Terrell and came up with 57. My mom bought a house, with no cosigner or monetary help, when she was only 2 years older than I am at this moment. I am so impressed with you, Mom! Anyway, she loved her little old house. It sat right on the main road through Forney. I don’t want to violate anyone’s privacy, so I won’t give you an exact location. Just know that it’s the thoroughfare one would use to get to the place we called the “Intermediate School” back when we just had one of each – schools, that is. On the way to and from that school, cars would routinely back up all the way past Marsha’s house. You would know it was her house, too. Mom had an eclectic style like no one else. She once talked all her friends into switching their adult beverage of choice to Zima (remember Zima?) because the bottles were blue, her favorite color. She would go to Settler’s every morning for coffee, to sit and visit with all the old timers. If you were a friend of my mother’s and you drank a Zima the night before, you knew you had to take it to Settler’s the next morning. Eventually, Mom edged her flowerbeds on both sides of her house in upside down, half buried Zima bottles. It was glorious. The inside of her house looked like the lovechild between Mary Engelbreit and John Wayne. She took the doors off all the cabinets to showcase her blue glass plates. The walls were striped in yellow and white. The counters were candy apple red. There were blue polka dots and delft china plates hanging on the wall. There was toile everywhere. She had a black goldfish named Willie. He was as big as my fist and he lived in a crystal punch bowl. He would jump out of the water when she made kissing noises. There were framed pictures of The Duke everywhere you looked. You could always find my mother in her living room, watching Rooster Cogburn or The Sons of Katie Elder. She loved John Wayne movies. But, I digress. You asked about the sign, right? See, Marsha did not suffer fools. She loved everyone, but she did not love a thief. One morning, after she sat on her porch drinking her coffee and waving to all the backed-up cars who were probably not being friendly as much as they were trying to figure out why there were upside down Zima bottles buried in the yard, she walked around the side of her house and saw that someone had cut the lock on her storage building. Her lawnmower and weed eater were gone. She called the police. She called me. I warned her to hurry and replace that lock as, even though they could cut it again, it might deter a second theft attempt. In addition to a lock, mom bought several large pieces of posterboard. The next morning, my daughter and I were on our way to the Intermediate School when we hit the traffic line and came to rest just in front of mom’s house. I heard Chynna say, “No, no, no, oh no – just no. Mooooooooom, noooooo!” Looking to my right, I saw that my mother was not on her porch drinking coffee. She was standing off to the right, gesturing to me wildly, pointing to the side of her storage building that faced the road. She had made a sign that was as big as the side of the building. In huge letters that were easily readable from the street, she had written, “To whom it may concern: If you stole my lawnmower and weed eater to feed your family, God bless you. Please come to my door. I have food for you. If you stole my lawnmower and weed eater to buy drugs, may your soul rot in Hell.” Oh, Momma. What I wouldn’t give to split a Zima with you tonight.
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