My Mom's 80th Birthday

Tuesday just flew by and so I am now catching up by writing my post today.  My mom had her 80^th birthday yesterday and so I spent some of my evening talking to her on the phone.  My mom and I have not been very close through the years so when there is an event like a milestone birthday it is difficult for me to determine just what I am to do to honor her.  Despite the history we have which could fill a novel I did want to honor the woman that gave me birth.  Just to give you an idea of what I mean by not close; she would say things like I am my father’s daughter (meaning that I took more after him and not her).  That was OK with me because truthfully I loved my dad.  He was the greatest.  It may have been more of a truth than a put down than I realized when I was younger.  To defend her too, she was the one that comforted me the day I said "goodbye" to my dad for the last time.  He told me he was proud of me and he loved me... I turned and walked out of the room, out of the house and mom drove me away.  As we went down the 405 she gave me wise advice about life and how to deal with losing someone you love.

I talked to my two brothers about what they were going to do for mom for her birthday.  I am the oldest and they usually haven’t been asked by me questions like this one.  I was the one who would give them suggestions or ideas.  Jon decided that he would call her (after all he hadn’t spoken to her for years) and I told him that would be a nice gift.  David (my younger brother) seemed to be focused on what my mom and step dad hadn’t done for him… so he wasn’t any help in making a decision as to what to do.  I decided to send her a card with two gift cards (because I couldn’t decide)… one to Nordstrom’s where she likes to buy there her nighties etc.  The other one was for The Cheese Factory because I can remember going there with them at Fashion Island (a shopping mall in Orange County).  I thought she could buy a piece of cheese cake for a piece of birthday cake or she could buy something else but it was special enough.  You know what I mean?

So after getting the card in the mail with the gift cards in it and calling her on the phone and spending some time talking to her, I felt that she was happy.   She talked a lot about how she had got a call from my brother Jon and got his phone number.  She talked about how turning 80 isn’t easy… that 80 itself isn’t easy.  Jon and I talk a lot about getting older so I hope she didn’t scare him.  What I tell him is for another post.

Anyway, that was the first birthday of the week.  Brady’s is coming this Friday so I will be sure to be posting about that birthday too.