Welcome back Viphilus*
I’m winding up this month
with my final post about things my Mom said.
To set this up I need to
show you a few pictures of her.
Mom liked to laugh; I mean, all
the time.
Mom was playful and whimsical
… sometimes just to amuse herself and sometimes just to make us laugh. And, of
course, if she made us laugh, it always caught her by surprise that we would
laugh at her … and then she would lose it, laughing uncontrollably. In this next picture, Mom is pretending to do a chin-up while we were at Oaklawn Farm Zoo in
Aylesford, NS. The moment we laughed at her playfulness, she began laughing … again,
uncontrollably.
One day we were playing cards. My
daughter, a budding young photographer at the time, took a photo of my Mom’s hand while holding her cards. She just loved taking snapshots of Granny's hands (go figure photographers).
Now, by the arrangement of the cards, can you guess what game we were
playing? No? Well, neither could she ... that's just how she arranged her cards regardless of what we played. Her
approach to card playing was, well ... goofy (and I'm being charitable). But she LOVED LOVED LOVED
playing cards because it guaranteed a time with others where light-heartedness
and merriment would happen.
My Mom had a whimsical side
about her that basically told you that she didn’t take herself very seriously …
although she took life itself very seriously.
Part of the whimsy that came
in the package called Mom were the inane utterances that she was found of
repeating … over and over … year after year … decade after decade. Most of them
made no sense at all, like:
“Well, looks like you got
stuck sucking on the chocolate fossil.” Translation?
It’s what she would say to anyone who ended up dead last in a game. Any game. What’s the origin or etymology of this expression you might wonder. Who knows …
it was just one of the goofy things she would say, and when pushed for an
explanation, she would just say, “oh, it’s just one of those things we used to say.” We? We who? If asked, she would just smile.
She was also very patient in
delivering a punchline, waiting until just the moment when delivery was
optimal. I’m talking patience on a time-scale measured by glacier movement … I’m
talking the patience of Jim Carrey in Dumb
and Dumber To who waited for 2 decades to deliver a gag. From almost my pre-school days, Mom would challenge me with one particular riddle, “If it took a man a week to walk a
fortnight, how many apples are in a barrel of grapes?" I would give up and
she would give me the answer, “A train.”
I would say I didn’t understand or that that made no sense or would ask
her to explain it and all I would get back was silence. <crickets>. Some time in my twenties, like a thousand times before, she posed the riddle. And like a thousand times before, when I gave up and asked for the answer she would say the answer I already knew ... “A train.” But on this particular occasion, I somehow stumbled ... by complete accident ... on the magic key to
unlock the mystery. For whatever reason, this time I responded with something like, “Seriously,
how do you get that?” Without hesitation she replied, “At Union Station.” And
then she smiled. Did I think what just happened, happen? Did she finally deliver
the punchline because she’d been waiting for 15-20 years for me to unlock it
with that question? I asked her. She just smiled.
My all-time favourite
Mom-story happened one summer when we were at the Buskers Festival in Halifax.
My wife, kids, Mom and I were at the outdoor event for hours, and as expected,
the point came when we needed to go to the washroom. The festival organization
had set up some new-fangled Port-a Potties. The inside of them had been outfitted with a new attachment and they looked something
like this picture.
Mom and Deb took the
first two empty ones available. Deb came out first and came straight over to
tell me that they were fancier this year and had a built in urinal on the side.
Cool I thought. My Mom came out next. She came straight over to us and said, “Wow,
these new port-a potties are amazing – they even have a little holder next to
the toilet to hold your purse.”
My wife let out an audible
gasp and said, “Mother!!!” Deb turned to
me in horror to get my reaction … but my eyes were still fixed on my Mom as my jaw was probably on the ground. With Deb
facing me, my Mom gave a quick wink without a smile. Wow … she’s totally punking Deb right
now, and doing it like a Pro.
Mom always looked for
opportunities to insert some whimsy into her day … and into the day of others.
What a wonderful gift for those of us who, at times, take life and ourselves a
little too seriously. Mom taught me that taking life seriously is fine, as long
as you don’t take yourself so seriously … that way you can laugh a
little, or in her case, a lot.
Thanks Mom. I miss ya.
I hope to see you back next
Monday where I'll have a new theme for October.
Blessings Viphilus,
Your friend, Omega Man
* Viphilus means, "lover of life"
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