TANGENTS

 

My Mother died a little over a year ago. She was a wonderful, caring, funny person, but she was pretty crazy. I say that she was crazy with a lot of love—I want to be clear about that. I just had to be quick on my feet to follow the thought process, if you get my drift. She helped me out in more ways that I could ever explain, and she was always there for me. She was just a little…well…nuts. I think of her now (and most days for other reasons), because I lost my job the other day, and I was trying to gauge the reaction she would have had. The conversation would have probably gone something like this:

RingRing “Hello?”

“Hey Ma. How are you doing?”

“I'm doing… (A pause and an audible shift of gears) what's wrong? What happened? Didn't I tell you to go get that colonoscopy done? Why won't you listen to me? I won't have one of my children die before me!”

“No Ma. I don't have cancer.”

“Then what is it? Are you doing drugs again? Were you driving drunk? Are you in jail ?”

“Jesus Christ no, Ma! Will you calm down for a second? I just called to tell you I lost my job today.”

“What did you do wrong? Why can't you just get along with other people? Did you hit someone? Are you going to jail ?”

“For cryin' out loud! No, ma, I didn't hit anyone. Why would I hit anybody? I work…err…worked at a carpet store. ( Sigh) There's not a lot of chance for violence there, Ma.”

“You were always the troubled one. Why couldn't you be more like your brother? Owns his own company, gets along with everybody and makes a lot of money. It's just like they say in the new book I'm reading about middle children—always in trouble and causing more pain for their Mothers.”

(Pause as I try to gather this in. I've obviously had years of practice shifting gears in conversations with my Mother, but I'm not Superman.) “You actually bought a book about middle children, and it actually says that in this book? (Pause) This, Ma, even for you, is a bit of a stretch.”

“Well…it doesn't come right out and say that, but that's what he means.”

(Note: if I had a dollar for all the self-help, self-psyche and self-guilt books my Mother has bought throughout my life, I wouldn't be worried about losing my job. I'd be sitting on a beach with Warren Buffet sipping a drink out of a glass that looks amazingly like a coconut shell. The glass would have a little pink umbrella in it, of course, poking me in the cheek every time I took a sip.)

“Ma, just listen for a sec, okay? It's not a good situation out there. The economy is in the crapper and people are afraid to spend money. I sell carpet. People will wait until things turn around and the world is running better before they change out their old carpet to get new stuff—it's not a necessity for them. If my company isn't making a lot of money, they can't afford their employees, and they tend to trim the work force to save money so they can survive until things do turn around. Does this make sense?”

(Long pause. I wait patiently, knowing what's coming next, dreading it, but knowing there is nothing I can do to stop it.)

“Really! What did you do wrong? Why would you make them mad so that they fire you? You should have gone to college like your brother. He's a big success. And he makes a lot of money.”

(Sigh. At this point I give up, knowing full well I'm running low on brain cells trying to keep up with this madness, and need to take some aspirin lie down.)

“Yep. You're right, Ma. The truth is…well…I slept with the boss's wife, she's pregnant with twins, and you'll be having some more grandchildren.”

(Pause. Another audible shift of gears—this time I can almost hear the grind as she goes from second straight into overdrive) “Twins! Grandchildren! Well…that's wonderful! Does she know what they are yet, boys or girls? I need to go shopping for clothes for them and…”

(Sigh.)

The world has become an odd place of late. Things aren't running smoothly, and there is an audible grinding as the world tries to find the gear so it can move forward. There will be a lot of casualties along the way, and that's the bad part. The good part is if we listen to our Mothers and sift through the craziness to the simple things that actually make sense, I think things will be alright.

My Mother used to tell me the following advice a lot, and something tells me that your Mothers have said the same thing to you in one form or another:

“When a door shuts, look for the open window.”

Thanks for that, Ma, ‘cause now I'm looking for windows, and I have a smile on my face thinking about you now.

 

JoAnn C. Matson

1943—2008

RIP