I Remembered Mama

                by  Jerry Gervase

                She was Mom, Gramma, Big Aunt Ro, Rose, or Mrs. G.

               But she was Mama to me.  She could be infuriating and irrepressible; iritating and irresistible.  She could be as sharp as a tack, or as tactless as an Eyewitness News Reporter sticking a microphone in your face.  You could rarely outsmart her and never out give her.
              She was the Queen of Hugs, squeezing the breath from her grandchildren, yet she could leave me breathless with a psychological body punch that would have Mike Tyson down for the count.
             She was self-educated, instilling her love of literature in me.  I knew Shakespeare before I knew nursey rhymes.  From Portia's soliloquy in "The Merchant of Venice," I knew that the quality of mercy was not strained, except for Mama's mercy which was often strained through guilt.
            She loved old songs and sung them to anyone who would listen."  A good old fashioned girl with heart so true......" described her perfectly.  But so did "you've got to please mama every night or you won't please mama at all."  Pleasing Mama was never easy.  Ask a son.  Or a daughter-in-law.  Her standards were high.  Even shopping for a Mother's Day card put pressure on me since it had better be the best one I could find.
           She began painting in her sixties.  No lessons, yet with a minimum of brush strokes she could stop a wave in midbreak or make a ballerina pirouette out of the frame.
           Simply stated, she was the best cook in the world.  On many meatless Fridays she served Fettuccine Alfredo, before there was aan Alfredo.  Cookies?  Compared to Mama, Mrs. Field is a bricklayer.  If Giada De Laurentiis tasted Mama's meat sauce she would quit her television show and seek anonymity in the Witness Protection Program.
           Bartlett's Quotations never printed anything she said.  Yet some of the things she laid on her children could stand with the greats of literature and philosophy.
           Mama on hygiene : "Since when isn't your face part oof your body?"  Followed with a scrubbing with a cloth with the texture of a Saguaro Cactus.
          Mama on Interpersonal Relationships : "How can you and that girl be doing nothing until 1:30 in the morning?"
         Mama on the propagation of the human race : "I can't wait until you have children of your own!"  This was followed by a serious of facial expressions and gestures that would confound a third base coach.
        Mama's personal motivation speech : "If you want any dinner tonight you better get up and go to work you lazy galoot."
       Mama on cloning : "You're just like your father."
       As we grow older we become realists and prepare for the day we will attend a parent's funeral.  However, we never prepare ourselves for attending a stroke.  At her bedside our role reversal was complete:  me, the concerned parent; she, the helpless child, afraid and seeking the future in my eyes.  We needed understanding more than ever, but she couldn't speak and I didn't know what to say.
       She slipped away as silently as the tide in one of her seascapes leaving me an orphan on the shore.  The world blinked at her passing and said I am too old to be an orphan.  Oh?  See Webster:  parentless child.  Age not withstanding, alone is alone.
       If she were around today I'd buy a card just to hear her say : "Is this the best you can do?"
  
       If your mama is still alive, don't wait.   Call her today.