Asking my mother direct questions often was as unsatisfactory as asking my father. The difference was that Mom’s answers were funny.
For instance, there was that time I asked her how my name was pronounced. I had struggled with this problem for years, settling on the simplest form: Deb.
When Mom was in her seventies (and I was in my 40s!) I finally asked. She was sitting in her chair, turned slightly away from the kitchen table, which undoubtedly held clipped coupons and a cup of coffee gone cold. I don’t remember what we had been talking about but as her various illnesses took a toll on her, our conversations increasingly focused on capturing memories.
“So, Mom,” I ventured. “Exactly how do I pronounce my name? Is is DEB-or-ah or Deb-OR-ah?”
She raised her head and looked directly at me; her tired eyes still that striking hazel impossible not to look into. She lifted her coffee mug, bringing the red-and-white checked table cloth with it, stuck to the bottom.
I waited.
She pulled the tablecloth from the bottom of the cup.
“So? Which is it?”
She held the coffee mug between her two hands and gave me the “look.”
“How the hell should I know?” was the reply.
When I was younger and struggling to come to terms with being vertically challenged, I would ask my mother for her theory on why I was the only short person in our family. Not surprisingly, she never shared that my father had been “height-deficient.” Maybe she hadn’t yet gleaned that piece of information, having met him after his long-awaited growth spurt. I’ll go with that.
Let me share her offerings:
“You were my first child. I didn’t know what I was doing”.
That one actually made sense and satisfied me for quite some time.
“My stomach hurt a lot when I was pregnant and I guess I must have shrunk you with the hot water bottle.”
That seemed a little far-fetched, even to my young brain, but I could see I wasn’t going to get any further. So. Ok. I went on with my life.
“You were born in Japan. Everyone there is short.”
I held onto that theory as gospel. Until I realized both my parents were Americans.
Mom’s theories weren’t exactly grounded in science. So I developed my own:
My mother had lied to me about my age. I was actually five years younger than I had been told. That one seemed very plausible. Until some jerk pointed out the math when I was in 5th grade. According to my theory, I would have been 5 years old that year and a newborn in Kindergarten. 5th grade was the pits.
Even today, people ask why I am the only short person in my family. Sometimes I share one of Mom’s theories. It’s always fun to watch people struggle to decide whether I’m serious. And then they change the subject. Mom would have appreciated that.
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Who We Are and How We Got This Way 