Some More

A picture that my daughter took not that long ago of her grandmother sitting at the table in her living room. That's where she ate, sometimes watched TV, and counted out her many pills.

Sometimes, when I would bake cookies, I'd bring a couple of still-warm ones down to her. She really liked them. I think it was as much that I was down there as that I came bearing cookies. Mothers can be like that.

Once, at a doctor visit, she asked where the doctor she'd seen the prior time was. The guy she was talking to didn't know which member of the practice she meant. " The tall one", she replied. " The colored man. " The guy got quite flustered.

My mother wasn't much of a cook. I grew up thinking that chewy and burned was how chocolate chip cookies were supposed to be. My wife asked her once why she'd never learned to cook as a kid, and she said that her mother would chase her out of the kitchen, telling her that it was faster for her to cook without her 'help', so she should go outside and play.

Two nights ago, she told my wife and I that she wanted us to ...and then she mumbled something. "Hold your hand?" my wife asked. My mother nodded vigorously, then lifted one hand and warbled I Want To Hold Your Hand. We were astonished. She started laughing.

I was never comfortable calling my mother 'Ma' or 'Mom'. I'm not sure why that was. I usually didn't call her anything at all. When I last saw her alive, though, and my daughter and wife had left us alone, I called her Mom. It felt right.