THE GHOST OF MOM
Let’s just say that luck was taking a day off at the bowling alley and striking out in the league of dreams. I wasn’t having a ball and I scored badly, trying to roll with the disasters of aging. It’s like my once well rounded life was in the gutter, dropping down hard and coming back up like a heavy weight. I was stuck with the golden years left of me and the jokers to the right. If some wonderful miracle would happen, I just might be O.K.
I say “OK,” as in being touched by someone or something significant and making it through rush hour traffic. After all, home waited on top of the triumphant hills with the sound of frying pans and friends. Tonight was my turn for hosting lively ladies and making pork chops for everybody.
As it is, I’d just gotten through a psychotherapy session with Dr. Pickett and I was confused. Yes, even 80-year old babes like me see a shrink once in awhile. It’s all good and fine this time around though. I was even given a prescription for Valium and told I wasn’t a schizophrenic after all.
“You just have a little case of depression.” Doc said.
Friday’s were out of the picture and we’d thrown back Thursday a long time ago. Tuesday was Blanche and Claire’s bingo night. Wednesday’s were nacho days for our husbands to get the chip off their shoulders and escort us to the Mexican fiesta. Let’s face it, folks. Weekends are made for watching Lawrence Welk and farting.
So, four times a month, on every Monday, we old ladies join in a circle and talk about books. We find it humorous that our adult grandchildren tire of changing their babies diapers and call us.
“Leave a message at the sound of the beep,” my telephone answering machine says.
“Hi, Nana. Do you think you could babysit little Joey for awhile this evening? Danny and I have been invited to a special service at the First Church of What’s Happening Now and we don’t want to miss it.” No can do.
To backtrack a little, on this particular fore mentioned day, I was so looking forward to an interesting book club discussion. Last week, 77-year old Blanche Blotches had chosen Nora’s Ephron’s book, “I Feel Bad about my Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman.”
Sugar plums, we all agreed with Ephron’s thoughts and felt terrible about our necks. At age-80, my neck, like the other seven old chicks in the group, was well covered up with a scarf and that’s a wrap. Once upon a dinosaur age, I was a regular Betty Gable though.
My lady friends Blanche, Claire, Millie, Lucille, Gloria, Samantha, and Mabel tell me they were absolute dolls too. Those were the daze, my friends. But, you know how it is; wrinkles happen, life happens. and the next thing you know, you’re a denture wearing, hearing aid user with an attitude.
By the way, to formally introduce myself, my name is Hillary Adeline Dove and I’m pleased to meet you. For short, my husband calls me “Had” a lot.
Henry says, “You had a good memory once, darling.”
I call him an idiot.
Our husbands. or the “boys,” as we girlie girls say, are forbidden to attend our book club meetings and must leave. Especially on this past Monday, as we were adamant about discussing a topic that touched us deeply: today’s youth and what’s with the pants?
As we held the book of discussion on our laps, sipping wine after dinner, sweet Lucile, (our youngest lady in the club), smiled. At the tender age of fifty-two, she seemed like a baby to us. Mrs. Lucille Lambs cleared her throat, batted her blue eyes, twirled her brown hair with her fingers and spoke.
Lucille thought the book, “Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office” by Jen Lancaster was interesting.
Ditto, we said, applauding every page that Jen had written and loving the words.
Right about then, somewhere in between discussing our growing youth and Prada bags, the wine and re-fills, and the frequent trips to the restroom, an amazing thing happened: We had a visitor.
It being it was my house and all, I answered the door with the glass of wine in my hand and got the surprise of a lifetime. The woman standing in the doorway looked very colorful to me.
“Hello, Hillary. I’m the ghost of your mother,” the visitor said, “You do believe in ghosts do you not?”
“Mom?”
“Sure, why not? Aren’t you going to invite me in, honey?”
I must say, my “mother” as a ghost was as spooky as spotting a UFO. There she stood, all 5’9” inches of her, and she had her long silver hair braided into hanging pig tails. Her pigtails even curled at the end and bounced. She, too, was wearing a scarf around her neck and she wore knee high polka dotted socks. Sandals. She also wore a midi-length moo-moo, straight from the 50’s, when I was 10-years old and she let me
lick the cake batter.
“Well, I could have showed up as an invisible spirit or something but I decided not to. I figured I’d come as you’ve known me to be and shoot the bull. It’s true. If Mama had lived to be 107, she’d be wearing that moo-moo. It was yellow like Doris Day’s house used to be in the Sixties. How can I forget driving by her house when we toured Hollywood?
“You’re not a ghost, you’re an angel, mom.” I cried.
“Listen up. I’m going to tell you a little secret, ladies. That old show “Highway to Heaven” isn’t so far fetched. Sometimes, angels have assignments and come to earth looking quite human like. An angel can be working as a cashier at your neighborhood grocery store, or a doctor, a nurse, a firefighter, and even a bank teller at your local bank.
Ghosts aren’t at all angels. Ghosts are more hazy looking and they usually come in a memory form. Spirits are the invisible mentors of your hearts and souls. Actually, I guess I’m all three of these things.
No sooner had my beautiful mother come back to me, she left again. For our next book club meeting, she suggested we read, “The Old Man and the Sea,” by Ernest Hemingway. She wanted us to read the book with the men in our lives. She thought we should invite every significant male, from our husband to our youngest grandson, and that is what we did.
We let the men do the cooking through.