How graphic do we need to get? If you were describing childbirth to an alien, where would you start? With the breathing and the sweating? With the contractions like Gas From Hell? With the fact that sometimes, as in my case, they had to fetch forceps and vacuums and everything else in the tool shed to yank daughter Francesca screaming from my body?
You’re right. I don’t deserve a greeting card.
I deserve a medal.
And a new car. Plus the Prize Patrol should pull up in front of my house with helium balloons and a giant check.
All moms deserve the same, whether they’ve been through childbirth or not, because we were there for our little monsters, whether they realize it or not. And before you get all feisty that I’m not including fathers, your day will come. But for now:
Happy Mother’s Day!
Mothers are the ones on the front lines when noses leak, tears need to be wiped, and prom dresses selected. Moms did things for us we don’t even realize and could never remember. We got to school each day, from kindergarten through middle school, washed and fed, lunches packed, with barrettes in our hair. How did that happen?
Moms.
I can’t even begin to tell you all the great things Mother Mary did for me, starting with letting me make jokes about her herein.
When I was first published, she had a poster made that read LOCAL AUTHOR and drove around with it in the back window of her Dodge Omni. When I called to tell her that I made the New York Times bestseller list, she asked in amazement, “Does this mean that they read you in New York?”
“Yes,” I replied.
She even called me last week after she heard about the swine flu, and told me not to eat bacon.
That’s love.
It’s not good information, but it’s love.
In fact, basically any product recall, from peanut butter to baby strollers, she calls me. If a storm is heading my way, she calls me sooner than it’s on TV. Doppler radar has nothing on Mary Scottoline.
Bottom line, she’s thinking of me every minute, and any news she hears, she relates to me.
Anything I am I owe to Mother Mary.
Doesn’t that merit a holiday?
A three-dollar card?
Some flowers? Chocolates? A book or a sweater?
Is a thank-you so out of the question?
Not to me. I’m on it.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.
I love you.
And thanks.