Mamma Mia!

Like a lot of women, I spent a good deal of time trying to distance myself from my mother. As a child of The Fifties and a woman of The Seventies I wanted very little to do with the stereotypical housewife and mother role presented to me by my mom and her friends. They had no life outside of their homes, they never earned a salary above minimum wage, and their main source of validation was their ability to pop out a new human being every few years. I arrogantly believed I could do so much more. And I wasn't shy in sharing that opinion.

Now that I'm looking back with some kind of clarity, I can see that my disdain for most of my mother's choices (the one to bring me or my terrific sister into this world not being among them) never seemed to take into consideration the limited options she might have had. In my youthful ignorance, all I could see was the fact that she depended on the male in her life for money, transportation, and just about everything else and I wanted no part of that.

I should probably mention here that I look quite a bit like my mom. I'm about the same height (before she shrunk an inch or so) and weight. We have the same wet sand-colored hair and fair complexion. The only physical trait I seemed to miss out on were those gorgeous green eyes. What I would have given for those! Anyway, I mention this because when I was younger, I used to be compared to my mom quite a bit. Friends and relatives would repeatedly tell me how much I reminded them of her. They would go on and on about our similarities thinking I would take it as a great compliment. I did not.

Couldn't they see I wasn't anything like her? Couldn't they see that I was a completely different kind of woman? What was wrong with them?

My mom is now eighty-three. In the last few years she has had a litany of ailments, injuries and medical "procedures". To say that she has faced each with grace and fortitude would be like saying Michael Jordan was a pretty good basketball player. Her latest ordeal yesterday, which left her with a few stitches in her eyelid and an eye that looks like she just went a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson, was met with her typical Germanic stoicism and resolve. Her anxieties always seem to give way to strength; her fears do not paralyze her. She grabs that cane, puts on her size 5 Keds and faces whatever comes her way with grit and determination. She doesn't complain. She just takes care of business.

So, I think I'm finally ready now. It may have taken me longer than it should have but I'm going to be ready with a response the next time a friend or family member tells me I'm the spitting image of my mom.

"I should only be so lucky," I'll say. And I'll mean every word.