O Is for the Oil

This is originally from a couple of years ago. I'm pretty sure neither I nor my feelings have changed a whole lot in the interim. I called it at the time:

Neither a Card nor a Moment

I figure everyone with a pulse, or an approximation is waxing poetic today in honor of Mother's Day, as well we should. This is my third Mother's Day without my Mom who passed away shortly before her 89th birthday but she is always and often in my thoughts. These are a few of them from a really long time ago. Miss you, Mom.

When I was a kid, Mom was more than unflappable, she was a force of nature and in the decades since the death of her husband, my dad, her children, joined by grandchildren and now great-grandchildren have watched her lead the life she wishes after taking care of so many of us for so long. Mom came to visit Sigrid and me and our two children when we all still lived in Germany.

My sisters, Evan, Kara, and Jill are accomplished, masterful, and successful. They take care of their own families with the same devotion and also the same discipline (no feet on tables, no glasses without coasters) as their mother did them. Glenn (Evan's late husband), Russ (Kara's fella), and Joe (paired with Jill) are fortunate to have them in their lives and smart enough to know it.

I and my two brothers, Kelly and Adam, are married to women, Sigrid, Linda, and Margaret whose Moms raised them to give us the confidence every day to go out into the world and try to reinvent it in our own image and, when we come home at the end of each day, oft defeated but never undaunted, to convince us we can begin again on the morrow because of their love and support. I think we have at least two point three boxcars of children, many with families of their own now.

I realize you may fear with my diabetes, being so sweet puts me in grave danger of being terminally mushy. No worries, I'm not, as I choose to invoke the deathless words of Ray Wylie Hubbard to close. Love ya, Mom(s), all of you.

-bill kenny