Twenty-seven years ago today, on 4/25/86, my mother left this life and moved on to the next great adventure.  It is so much easier to think of it that way, rather than mourning the loss of someone so dear to me for the rest of my life.  She would never have wanted any of us to be so sad all the time.  Not that she wouldn’t have been a little thrilled that we were all pretty wrecked when she left, but dragging the mourning on and on, ad infinitum, would have been, to her, a sure sign that somebody needed to get a different hobby.

My mother was one of those drop-dead gorgeous World War II babes, smoking those Pall Malls, which eventually became Tareytons when she decided using a cigarette with a filter might be a wiser idea.  Not wise enough, unfortunately, and the COPD smoking created, along with the resultant congestive heart failure, kept her tethered to an oxygen machine for the last years of her life.  I had seen it coming on years before, though.  In truth, I heard it.

My cousin Herbie and I used to play tennis at the junior high school up the street from our grandmother’s house.  We were 15, slamming the ball at each other as hard as we could, racing around like maniacs, sliding and stretching for every shot.  Mother and Aunt Edna had walked up to the school and said they’d like to play, too, so we agreed.  Mother had been quite an athlete in her day, playing golf, tennis, softball, bowling, gymnastics, and even basketball, amazing us all with her timing and accuracy. This was the same woman who taught me how to do a hook slide into the bottom of our mimosa tree, which doubled as third base in our front yard; the same woman who smacked a softball so hard it went across the street and crashed through Mrs. McKinnon’s bathroom window.  Then, Mother thrust the bat at me and ran into the house!  Just a few years later, when I heard her chugging across that tennis court, sounding like a tattered old bagpipe, i thought:  SHE’S ONLY 42 YEARS OLD – WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?

What, indeed.  COPD & CHF are two terrible ways to die, and two really terrible ways to live.  She gave up the smokes eventually, but not soon enough.  And, really, I think the only reason she didn’t smoke anymore was the fear that she’d blow the house up with a match struck in a room where oxygen was hissssssssssssing away.  The damage to her lungs and heart was already done, though,and what terrible damage it was.  Life can get intense and un-fun pretty quickly when you’re struggling for your next breath.

I know that none of us is getting out of here alive, and I know that we are all killing ourselves in one way or another every day.  I just wish her life had been easier, and I wish we’d gotten to keep her longer, to see her healthy and teaching her grandkids how to do a hook slide without breaking a hip.  That would have been fun to see.  And so, on this day, just like I do each year, just like I do each day, I think of her, remembering her as so beautiful and vibrant – the woman with the dimples and quite an arm, too, slinging that ball into third as I slide in right under the tag, just like she taught me.  Happy Heavenly Birthday, Mother.  I love you much as always, and I hope your day has been – well – just Heavenly.

I cry easily. And, this week, there have been many opportunities for the waterworks to start. First, for the senseless loss of life and maiming of people in Boston at what is, normally, a time of celebration. Then, tears of admiration for the first responders who were running in to help when everyone else, so terrified, was running away. Next, there were tears for the way our nation rallied around the hurt and the heroes as billboards and signs on social networking sites shouted out BOSTON STRONG reminding us that it’s not only a description but a way of life for our brothers and sisters on the east coast of this great land. There were tears when Neil Diamond showed up at the Red Sox game to lead the crowd in singing SWEET CAROLINE, his hit, which has become the ball team’s theme song. There were tears, too, for the relentless work of law enforcement officials who worked so quickly and so tirelessly to bring the perpetrators in and the bravery they showed in a shootout which left one young terrorist dead and his brother wounded and on the loose for awhile longer. But not much longer. And, finally, there were even tears for those two brothers whose young lives have shattered and ended amidst so much tragedy and pain. How could they have gotten to that place where they thought murdering and maiming people was a good idea? It is hard to wrap my brain around this. And their message was…WHAT? That the older one didn’t have any American friends? That the younger one was about to flunk out of college? I DON’T GET IT. We can call them Muslim terrorists but, in truth, they are two young men, two screwed up young men, who performed an act of terrorism and who also happen to be Muslim. I don’t know very many Muslim people, but the ones I know don’t hate Americans. They are peaceful people who just want to live their lives and practice the faith they grew up with. I think we are wrong in, once again, assigning blame to the people of the Muslim faith for the crappy actions of a few. I mean, haven’t we had a barrel full of bad apples from the Christian faith? Jewish faith? Hindu faith? Others?
Some years ago, I chatted with an Ethiopian-born cab driver in Dallas. I asked him why he had come to America and become a US citizen. He said, “Remember that song, ‘We Are the World’ which came out in 1984? The money raised by that song saved my village. I began to think about how, whenever there is a true need in the world, America always steps forward to help. Other wealthy nations do not do this. Saudi Arabia doesn’t; Germany doesn’t; France doesn’t; Japan doesn’t. America ALWAYS does. I decided I wanted to be one of those people who always steps forward to help. That is why I became an American.” I forgot to ask him about his faith, but it really doesn’t matter to me. He’s an American who loves his county. Like me.
Earlier in the week, right after the tragedy, when we were emerging from the smokey residue of two bombs and the bloody miasma of wounds and terror, I was half-listening to somebody from Boston talking on one of the news shows. When he said the words, “THEY HAVE MESSED WITH THE WRONG CITY,” tears exploded out of me and I sank into the couch, heaving big, snot-laden sobs, my heart, all at once, both heavy with sadness and soaring with pride. “Yes, indeed, ” I thought, “indeed they have.” What happened in Boston – what those two young men did – was evil. It was wicked. But, we all know for sure now, if we didn’t know it before, just as the signs people held up at the Red Sox game said: BOSTON STRONG. WICKED STRONG. Boston will get through this. And so will we all.