A Day Older Than George Washington

My mother was born February 21, 1936. Since she died in October of 2006, you don't have to worry that she will be upset that I've told you her age. In fact, even if she were still alive, it wouldn't bother her. Not really. She always told everyone she was 99 and that was that.

I remember the time I sat with her in the new dentist's office. I read over her shoulder as she filled out the form. When she wrote her age, I shrieked, "I KNEW you weren't 99! You're TWENTY-NINE." She shushed me and later told me not to tell women's ages out loud in public in the biggest voice you have.

"Why not?" I asked, admiring the genuine glass ruby ring I'd gotten from the dentist.

"Because it's not polite."

"Why not?"

"Because some women think it's bad to be too old."

"But not you, you don't mind being old," I said in shock.

I must have been a truly obnoxious child.

I found out many many years later that Mom did have one of those "turning thirty" crises. Her good friend died of breast cancer that year. She tried to quit smoking because, she told me with a dry laugh, "I thought it looked tacky to see 'old women' smoking, and old was 30." We both laughed, since by then, I was celebrating the 13th anniversary of my 30th birthday. She was still 99.

It was important to my mother that we remember her birthday. After a few years, she got prickly if we asked her what the date was. She gave me a saving grace, though. She told me that she was one day older than George Washington. At first I argued that it couldn't be true, but she insisted, in the same way she insisted that Santa Claus brought presents, the Easter Bunny laid colored eggs, and Hubert Humphrey would be president of the United States. So I quit arguing. It took awhile. I really was an obnoxious child. I can't remember when I realized that if I forgot the date of her birthday, all I had to do was look at the calendar. George Washington's birthday, February 22. Mom's birthday, the day before.

This worked for several years before the federal government stepped in to make my life more difficult. And although GW always celebrated his birthday on a Monday, Mom wasn't ok with moving her birthday around. I thought it would be very convenient to always have her birthday on Sunday. But she was funny that way.

It was ok as long as most calendars still had "GW's birthday observed" and "GW's birthday." Then many quit including the real date. Once again, I was in trouble. Finally, I just learned the date of her birthday. February 21. Or was it the 22nd?

Rainy days and Fridays

It is Friday morning. I hear the rain outside, but it is too dark to see. Since this is South Carolina, precipitation usually means it is warm. It may bring a cold front, but that will be crisp dry air that will make my hair stand up when I take off my hat. That's ok. It is Christmas, and it should be cold.

Yesterday, I went Christmas shopping. I've done it before, but it's always an adventure. My brother and I went to the Village at Sandhill, which as my son points out, is not really a village, even if it does have a horse and carriage ride. I've seen places like this in other cities, and it always makes me feel as if I am in Disney World, without the water rides. I expect to see Goofy and Cinderella. I don't. I do hear every version of little drummer boy ever made, but that's not necessarily a bad thing... once a year.

Two years ago, I was sick at Christmas time. Really sick. For two days before and two days after Christmas, I lay in bed and whimpered. Since I am a last minute Christmas person, many gifts went unwrapped if not unbought. Christmas eve, I arranged the presents, crying because I couldn't get it done. My husband didn't seem to see the problem, and that of course, made it worse. Christmas morning, I left the bed to watch my children open their gifts. Someone opened mine for me and I went back to bed while the rest of them went off to my parents' house and then to my husband's parents' house. I threw up and went to bed.

For a few weeks afterward, I found presents that had not been delivered. I handed them over with a shrug and an apology. "Sorry, I was sick. I lost 20 lbs." (Always looking on the bright side.) "There will always be next year."

It was my mother's last Christmas. She was sicker than I was. I couldn't see her, because I couldn't take the chance of infecting her in her weakened condition. And of course, we really didn't expect that to be her last Christmas.

Oh Well.

Today, I work, and get a paycheck to pay for some of my Christmas spirit. Then I go out again and shop some more. I am not sick; no one is, praise god. I will make my husband wrap presents or at least bring me rum-soaked eggnog as I wrap them. He may not see the point, but, god as my witness, he's going to pretend he does. I will see my father and siblings; think of my in-laws in Antarctica and Wild Dunes; and sing one more version of Little Drummer Boy.