An Email from Mom

My relationship with my mother is nothing if not complicated. I love her, but we don't often mesh. She's been highly critical over the years, often about really insignificant things. Some All Most of those criticisms have stuck with me.

In 1993, I think, she visited my husband and me when we lived in a small town in Connecticut. At the time we lived on the second floor of an old farm house with a crazy landlady and her Great Dane below (I should write about them sometime). I cleaned like crazy before she came, but there was only so much I could do to make the place look good. It was an old house, in the country, there was my landlady's impact on the building and honestly, it needed some serious upgrades - which is part of why it was remotely affordable for us (my husband was still in school and to say that things were tight financially is an understatement). At any rate, I did the best I could, and it looked pretty decent I thought.

It was September when she visited, and we had been harvesting the last of our garden crops. I planned some yummy meals with our fresh tomatoes and herbs - or so I thought. One evening, after setting out a bowl of pasta with sauteed fresh vegetables, grated parmesan and toasted pine nuts, she looked closely at the bowl, turned to me and said, "Are we only having noodles?" I was kind of surprised, but responded, "There's salad, too." She waited a beat, the I heard her groan audibly.

Oh dear.

The next morning, my mother went out for an early walk around the conservation land across the road from us. When she came back in, she was holding something between her finger and her thumb. She said to me, "Look what I found on the landing just now," and set this thing down on my kitchen counter.

She continued, "It's roach egg sac." Another beat goes by as I look at her, then, "It must be really hard to keep this place clean," and she turned and walked away to the small guest room to get ready for the rest of the day.

I looked closely at this little object, feeling horrified and mortified, and not a small bit belittled.

It was a black bean from the garden.

I did not then and have never pointed that out to my mom. There was no point - she had some other agenda, and it was not my cleaning skills. But the moment has stayed with me. How could it not?

I instantly thought back to that moment this morning. I emailed my mother yesterday and asked if there is anything in particular she would like for Mother's Day and her birthday, which is few days later. She replied this morning, making a suggestion for a gift certificate to the ballet.

Her email continued, telling me about some painting she is having done at her house. As part of that topic, she wrote, "Some furniture has not been moved since moving in here nearly 25 years ago--finding lots of dust! "

Euw.

The temptation to say something snarky in reply is strong, but I won't. Though she doesn't know it, keeping my mouth shut, not the gift certificate, is her real Mother's Day gift.