On a Sunday morning, my Momma would sleep in some. She’d wake up slowly with a cup of coffee. If none had been made, she’d ask why it hadn’t. Momma loved nice housecoats and warm, fuzzy slippers. She drank her coffee from small cups, never very big around. She liked to do the crossword puzzle. I remember her liking a slim style pen. The kind too small for my big fingers to hold. Whenever I’d show up with one; she’d take it from me and say, “oh, where’d you find my new pen?” Lol.
On Sunday mornings around 11, she’d call some of us and share that she had a roast in the oven, and dinner was going to be around 3 pm…I miss those calls.
Sometimes when I’d come by and help myself to a a sandwich, she’d watch me make it while she was eating something boring herself. Then she’s ask me for a bite. After she’d tasted it, she’d say, “this is good. Go make yourself one now…” I loved that.
Momma always peeled potatoes with a paring knife. Lots of potatoes. She was a great cook and baker. She was good at sewing, and loved dressing her kids, then her grand kids. She made beautiful stuff.
Momma loved to laugh. Loved good jokes, even dirty ones. She would laugh real hard at one, then smile and say, “you’re awful”.
Momma loved watching the 90’s Mariners. If we didn’t watch a game together, I always kept my phone nearby. After a great play by Griffey Jr, she call and ask if I had seen it. I’d tell here I had, and she would proceed to tell me about it anyways…
She loved helping people, with navigating officious letters that were hard to decipher, with taxes, and getting help from Social Security, or DSHS if a young mother was left in a health quandary and had no way to get medical help, or feed her babies.
Momma loved life, her family, her friends, and making a difference. Vimy was SMART, making her way through college later than most. She did very well at scrabble and cards…very competitive.
But mostly, she was my Momma, and I loved her so. We didn’t always like each very well, but the fences were always mended, and things warmed up again. Towards the close of her time here among us, I tried to return to her all the care and love she had bestowed on me over my forty or so years, and I held her very soft hands…always so soft. I gave her a few last small sips of water. We talked about time, how we’d had so many good times. She remarked that it hadn’t been enough time. I replied that it had to be enough…because there was little left.
And for me at least, her last quiet words whispered in my ear, were the most important three of all…and I can still hear her, “I love you”, to this day over a dozen years later.
And I can picture her in her chair in the dining room by her computer, smiling at a story I’d be telling her after a day at work, and with her crooked grin, a sparkle in her pale brown eyes, and a gaze my way, I knew then as I know now…Momma loved her middle child…and to that memory, I sigh a happy sigh…dab away a glad tear, and return the same for her…Love you Momma…Happy Mother’s day, Matthew Lyle.
Matthew Lyle Landsman 