MAMA

My mother is hard to describe. It's been thirty-five years since her death, so I've had plenty of time to figure her out. But the task is impossible.

Mama was fearless. About everything besides her mental health. Her mental health was one thing she hid from, ran from, ignored.

Focused on.

I used to wonder why she fought so hard to control. Everything. She was not content to just float, wander, skip along life's shores.

To relax.

Except when that switch flipped, and she threw her control board into the river.

Nah. She never did that.

What she did do was get a wild hare up her ass every now and then. And that hare could be plenty fun.

Take Flower.

Most folks never had a pet skunk.

Or a pet raccoon.

Or 3 wild mallards, 2 ducks, 12 ducklings, 4 cats, ten kittens, and a dog. All at the same time.

All in the city.

They didn't use a collie dog as a babysitter. Or pet detective.

Most mothers didn't work back then. They stayed home and vacuumed rugs in their pearls. Warm chocolate chip cookies and tall glasses of cold milk greeted their children coming home from school, tired and hungry.

Most kids didn't have to walk home in the heat. Or the cold. Or the rain.

But most moms didn't take their kids and half the neighborhood out into the darkness, to learn Kick the Can. Or play Hide 'n Seek.

And most moms didn't teach those same kids how to roll houses or spoof rival high schools.

Most kids didn't have a mother like mine.