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Happy Birthday, Hellraiser!
June 24, 2008My 21-year-old sister remembers mother in the oddest of ways. Last Saturday, I found her weeping.
“What are you crying for?”
“I’ve fever.”
“And you’re crying because of that?”
“No. I’m crying because I have fever, and it’s terrible that I should be having a fever without a mother.”
Stifling the urge to laugh, I gave my sister aspirin and told the helper to find her a hilot. “And look for the motherly type,” I could not resist adding.
It’s been 17 years since Mama died. We’ve had more than our fair share of fevers, asthma attacks, dog bites, and other illnesses – real and imagined. I would imagine she’s up there right now, grinning like I am, because really, my sister gives in to nostalgia in a strange, strange way.
I never really got to know the woman my mother had been, but she must have been a kindred spirit. She insisted I learn to read by age four, and was adamant that I be introduced to Jack, Jill, Little Miss Muffet, and the wide array of ghouls in local folklore. She took Papa’s karate tournaments and nunchuck competitions in stride. She ran in a major national race once and lost; but Lolo said she looked glorious in shorts. She believed carnivals are essential to child development; I was the only second-grader I know who was quite blasé about riding the ferris wheel and seeing magicians decapitate their assistants. When a cousin asked why we did not own a jeep like they do, she answered we were saving up for a helicopter.
Today, I look at an old picture of her in a black shirt that says Hotshot and a hideous 80s hairdo, and smile. It’s hard not to, not with her grinning at me like that, as if to say, “I may have never lived past my 28th birthday, but boy, did I ever raise hell! Don’t disappoint me, woman.”
Happy birthday, ma. May you run more miles up there on roads that stretch on and on and on legs that go even longer.
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wherever you are cool tita— HERE’S AN ICE COLD STALLION FOR YOU \m/
Posted by tinay at June 24, 2008, 6:54 pm