Mother's Day Words

"We keep a-comin'. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out. They can't lick us. We'll go on forever. Paw.....cause.....we're the people.

- Ma, from THE GRAPES OF WRATH

Yep, we keep a comin'. Great mother's , good-enough mothers, strong mothers, weak mothers, mothers who cook, mothers who don't, mothers who sew, mothers who couldn't make a costume out of a sheet with two cut out eyes, lines of mothers, voyagers of hope, dismay, discovery. I am a mother....a great step-mother, a good enough mother to my son, a worthy, I hope, grandmother, a maternal force in many womens' lives. In my journals I've written as much about my children as I have about the events and situations in my life.

Yesterday, in the car, Aleister reached up and lightly pinched my cheek. "What are you doing?" I asked. "I am pretending that I am a grandmother," he said, "and this is what grandmother's do. They pinch their grandchildren's cheeks. Kids hate it."
"Do I do that to you, Aleister?" I ask. "No," he says. "You are too young to do it. Mama Kay, how old ARE you?" "Old," said. "Yes, but...how OLD are you?" "I'm not telling," I said, "ask something else." "I JUST want to know how OLD you are," he said. "Well, keep on wanting," I said. He grinned at me, waited a few moments and then asked, "Just how big a pain in the butt am I?" "Not very," I said. "Today, not at all." "But I AM a pain in the butt sometimes, right?" he asked. "It depends on who you're asking, I guess," I said. He started making clucking and wheezing noises. "Can you feel it now?" he asked. "Feel what?" I questioned. "The pain in the butt feel," he said. "Yeah, now that you mention it, I think I CAN feel the beginnings of a pain in my butt. Would that be you?" He smiled. "Yup," he said. "Yup, it's me."


The remarkable thing about my mother is that for 30 years she served us nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found."
- Calvin Trillin

"If evolution really works. how come mothers only have two hands?"
- Milton Berle

and this:

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a little-son-of-a-bitch."
- the actor, Jack Nicholson

I want to tell my children that I love them. I want to tell them that their love for me brings me to my knees. Many people know that my own son and my relationship has not been easy and has very often been sheer torture. Still, I have a mother's heart and there remain at least a few lasting leaves on my Mother Tree for him. The leaves are called "Maybe Someday" and "I Think I Can Hang On a Little Bit Longer" and "I Did Adore Being Pregnant With You, So Many Long Years Ago."