mother almanac 2005

Today marks the birth of The Saint who gave me birth when she was 20 years and 20 days old, 40 years and 345 days ago. Must have been a scary prospect for a kid to think of raising a kid, but she had already dealt with my dad for over a year, so she must have been pretty prepared and practiced. In any case, something had prepared her for so tough a task, because she seems to have breezed through the next few decades, even though we weren't breezy children, until one by one each of us wee ones got out of her hair and left her once again to focus solely on raising dad.
My turn to step out and find a new woman to cling to came 18 years ago, at which point The Saint had reached the ripe old age of 42, an age that seemed to me to be beyond the ability to fathom.
Since that day in August, 1986 when I loaded my goo and drove to Pennsylvania to take a wife and job, I have come nearer and nearer to the ripe old age of The Saint who, job finished, turned me loose on that fine August morning. But in some twist of the space/time continuum, some cosmic whip action caused a piece of string to loop so that it touched another piece of the string. While I neared the age that she was when I left her, she began nearing the age that I was when I left.
Imagine the awkward situation in which she now finds herself at 24, trying to raise an old geezer whose quantum loop didn't quite make contact in the same way hers did. No doubt his has also slowed down time, but it hasn't traveled backward like hers has.
She and dad are not the only ones who find this situation awkward. Imagine, at 40, constantly calling a 24 year old for advice. Though her receding age has not diminished her wisdom, nor impeded the acquisition of increasing wisdom normally afforded with the advancement of the years, it is a bit awkward to look to someone nearly half your age for these life-nuggets that are so desperately needed in surviving the advancement of middle age. Truthfully, she has never been where I am, and therefore hasn't much to offer. Oh, that I could reach the middle-age threshold and then reverse the process as she has. Skip the crisis. Skip the saggy skin and crow's feet. Skip the aching joints. Skip the red convertible. Just go straight to a good, solid, 20-something's Rav4.
But there is an upside to a mother who grows ever younger, ever hipper. She dislikes my music less and less as the years pass and she probably won't be nearly as devastated to find out that her 40 year-old son just got a tattoo instead of a red convertible. Actually, I'm a little more worried about my own reaction if I were to find out that she got a tattoo. Say it ain't so.
So on this 21st day of January, 2005, I blogify my love, appreciation, and indebtedness in the form of goofy words and the obligatory MP3 of my Happy Birthday arrangement.
Though the words are all for you, mom, you've got to share the playing of Feliz Cumpleanos del Sur with Greg Gillmeister (happy birthday - you're 41 before me), and a memorial hug for Uncle Roy.