Answer the Phone

In a world of text messages, IMs, and emails it's rare when you get someone to answer the phone.

People just don't have time to talk.  Moms are busy.  Brothers are driving.  Friends are going grocery shopping for Soy milk and gluten-free bread.  Who can interrupt their tight schedules to shoot the breeze on the telephone anymore?

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine texted me back when I called her on her cell phone and wrote, "Grl, don't u know how 2 text, u'd hear frm me lotz more!"

Oh text messages, you make us all sound like eleven year olds scribbling notes to each other in math class.  But I get it.  Times, they are a-changing.

Thankfully for me, there is one person in this big lonely world who doesn't require a keyboard and shorthand. For me there is someone who always answers the phone when I call.

My mom.

My mom always always always picks up the phone.  And if she doesn't once or twice I would forgive her because Lord can I be irritating.  I call her a lot.  A lot a lot if it's been an extra crappy day.  Which is to say I need her to feel sorry for me and tell me what a great job I'm doing even if I did just throw Doc McStuffins on TV for the kids to go hide under the blanket with the rest of the malted milk balls at 3pm.

My mom is always on my team.  She doesn't necessarily tell me what I want to hear but she has a graceful way of helping me understand maybe I'm hormonal and don't really want to sell my children, husband, entire wardrobe on Craigslist.  She is my 24 hour hotline; my informative and reliable call center. 

I talk to her so much during the day that when I didn't get to hear her voice for a week (she was on a cruise) I felt like she had disappeared.  Yes, disappeared from my selfish narcissistic world but disappeared nonetheless. It felt strange, off, and wrong.

Is this how it feels when your mom is gone?  You pick up the phone to tell her you had your shirt on backwards all day and suddenly feel a dart in your chest because you realize she won't be on the other end? 

I'm sure it's much worse than my little pang when you know your mom is really gone. And not coming back in the way you need her to. 

So I think I get it, why my friends without their moms must not be entirely down with Mother's Day.  Even if they have children of their own they probably have a sinking lead belly about a day that celebrates, makes loud, is splattered all over Facebook that their own call center has forever relocated to an undisclosed location.

Very few get to be in the position I am in now.  I am lucky.

Most of my close friends have either lost their own mother, are in the process of losing their mother, or wish they could've lost their mother years ago.  I am so fortunate to still have my mom, a mom who is interested in my life (as I am hers), wants to spend time with me (as I do with her), and honestly sounds delighted every time her caller ID says it's me (Hi Mom, me again.  Is it vinegar to remove pee from couch cushions?) 

So this Mother's Day I hope these friends of mine have someone who answers the phone when they call.  If it can't be their mother I hope it's their father, their brother, their sister or their best friend.  I hope that somewhere in this world of abbreviations and lols they get the sound of warm laughter that is honestly delighted they have called.  Again.  To tell them they had their shirt on backwards all day or just ate all the malted milk balls.

Happy Mother's Day.

***Mom, I hope you got your present today since you attending the reading with me was your gift to me. And I loved every second because you were sitting right next to me instead of miles away on the other end of the telephone that is probably ringing.  Again.

xoxoxo