I roll my eyes sometimes at how many ordinary happenings I attribute solely to the presence of my dead mother. I’d toss the butt of my cigarette toward the garbage bin and if it went in I’d say, “Thanks, Ma.” A knife falls from the counter, misses my foot and I’d say, “Love you, Mom.”
My mother and I were stopped in line at a red light. I was young, maybe nine or eleven. It’s hard to say. I was a sick kid and the years spent at the hospital have kind of arrested my jumbled frame of time. I was at that stage of questioning things, lots of things. And to my sweet, hardworking, single mother who was once a nun, uncomfortable things.
Kenny Rogers played forever on the eight-track and the spent blades whined against the windshield.
“Hey, Mom?”
She was fairly calm, which was nice. And this time it didn’t seem a struggle for her to be so. To the blurred red light, she said, “Yeah, hon?”
“At church they say that you have to love Jesus or God more than anyone. Do you believe that?”
Without hesitation she said, “Jesus and God are the same and of course I do.”
The light turned green and I said, “I don’t.” Slowly inching forward I said, “I don’t believe that at all.”
We were a ways back in line and I could see my mother grow a little uneasy when the light turned red again.
“Well why not?”
“Because I love you more,” I said. Kenny Rogers was telling the world to never fall in love with a dreamer and I said, “I’ll always love you more, Mom.”
The light turned green and we made our way left into a restaurant parking lot. We must have been celebrating something because rarely did we ever have the money to eat out.
The lot was crowded but it seemed to me that we found a parking space fairly quickly. To my mother though, it must’ve felt like forever because it took her that long to reply. She put the car in park and cut the engine. Her red polyester jacket swooshed against itself as she turned to face me but still said nothing.
I could tell that this was bothering her. The silence at that point seemed louder than the increasingly fat patter of rain and I realized my opposition to this issue was a big deal to my mother. That maybe I had, at that moment, just questioned the very foundation of Catholicism. And now, with a lone and sudden dissension, it seemed to her as though this same essential dogma was in serious jeopardy of ever defining her son.
Through the stinging, wind-driven drops of rain, we made our way into the restaurant. Taking a seat by the television set, my mother couldn’t have been happier that a Red Sox game was on.
Unlike the rapid action of other sports, the slowed down structure to the game of baseball lends itself to hours of conversation. But we were Irish and hot-button issues such as religious dissent were generally left alone and un-discussed.
When attempting to broach the subject of my wavering beliefs my mother would suddenly morph into a color commentator and give a running play-by-play of the game.
Watching her watch the game I said, “It just seems dumb that’s all.” In the condensation of my water glass I doodled something crass, wiped it away with my thumb and said, “How could anyone have done something more than you to make me love them more than you?”
With a cheekful of burger she said, “In all of the eighties so far, Dewey’s got more homers than any player in baseball. He’s got eight gold gloves too.” Wiping her mouth with frayed pieces of a napkin she’d been tearing at, she said, “His wife’s name is Susan.”
I squiggled a fry in the ketchup and said, “I mean, I get the whole Jesus and dying and sinning thing, but you went through a lot to make sure I’m alive, Mom.”
Not looking at me or at her food, she said, “Isn’t that nice?” She grabbed a pickle from the side of my plate and said, “Sue and Dewey.” Through the spear, she smiled and whispered, “Dewey and Sue.”
I pulled the napkin from my lap and placed it on the plate. Looking at the television but not actually seeing what was on it, I said, “I don’t know, Mom. Maybe this Catholic thing isn’t for me.”
And to me or the TV, my mother said, “Oh Shit.” She said, “Ya friggin’ bum,” and opposing moans exploded from the crowd around us.
This moment surfaces every now and again and I’m not sure why. In regards to my once altar boy-Catholic foundation, I have since pissed all over it, blown it to bits, and kept the pieces I’ve liked. After all, Kenny Rogers always said that the secret to survivin’ is knowin’ what to throw away and knowin’ what keep.
Catholics believe that God is always there, that he’s omnipresent. Well, since my mother has passed, that’s what I feel about her. She’s helped to shape my conscience and introduced me to her faith. And in a way she has become both. I still love my mother more than God. I always will. But now and again I’ll roll my eyes when I thank her for the rain. At least, I guess, it makes up for all the times that I didn’t.
© 2016 Bernard j. Bass All Rights Reserved
read sox 