Mom gets her feisty on

Mom was fresh from a shower when I got to her place this morning, her hair coiffed and combed. She tells me she got a group call from her friends at the college reunion last night, and says they told her she was much discussed. She was happy with this.

On the way out to church, we walk with little, bent-over A, and she and Mom recount the breakfast table conversation, which was, Would you be younger if you could? Apparently, there were some who said they would not. But A was adamant. "Yeah, I'd like to go back -- we'd be young again!"

I wonder, probably unkindly, if A ever had a middle age. Never married, no kids, taking care of her mom for decades -- well, hey, speaking just for myself, at this rate I'll want a chunk of my 50s back.

Mom also says she talked to the nurse, and her daughter S, and they have encouraged her to, as she says, "Remember to blame the disease -- and that might help because I think I am going crazy." I actually do think she feels frustration, even a little anger, with herself when she can't do things -- well, who wouldn't? -- when really her Parkinson's symptoms account for almost every aspect of her condition.

So we head to church and the first thing she says when we get inside is, "Is that my quarterback?"

I look over and, yeah, it's her quarterback. It's just minutes before the service, and he's talking to his wife, who's in her choir robe, and Mom says, "Oh, I wanna meet her. I've never met her." She takes a step toward them, and I actually stand in front of her. "No, Mom. They're tired of us talking to them."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because we talk to them too much, and you have talked to her, and she even wrote you a a note about Ann Arbor."

She admits she got a note, but denies that she's ever really met the wife. And she sits down, and doesn't look at me for almost the entire service.

OK, now I've done it, I think.

We get through the social hour without Mom noticing that they're in there, although I note that Julie holds a lengthy conversation with the wife, fortunately behind a pillar and out of Mom's view. Julie is, of course, unaware of our little set-to in the pew.

Then, at the Bistro, Julie discusses how she learned from the quarterback's wife that a certain choir member has a serious health issue, etc, etc, and while I shrink into a little ball, Mom says she'd like to meet that wife, and she has a right to meet her if she wants to.

"Mom, you only want to meet her because he's a quarterback," I say.

"No! They lived in Ann Arbor. And so we have this in common, and if you talk more, you might find other things."  This is, apparently, My Mother's Conversation Method, which is patented.

Still, privately, I am kind of miffed. In a church of say, 250 active members, you might hold brief conversations with people you know maybe as often as once a week. For me, this is at most three people. Then there is an outer circle of people you might talk to four times a year. And then a wider circle of people you might talk to once every six months, or even just once a year. This is where the quarterback and his wife lie in my world. And I find it false, and socially embarrassing, to have my mom, on the slimmest pretense possible, to be forcing herself on these people who have, really, very little interest in her.

Finally, brunch is over and we spend a little time in the room.

As I leave, I say, "You're doing really good, Mom."

"Even fought for my right to talk to the football player," she says. "Didn't win, but."

Probably I should just relax about this.