Momisms and me

My brother and I call them "Momisms": it's when our super hilarious 74-year-old mother says something incredibly precious.

Of course I can't think of any right now, except to say that when she found out I'd gone atheist (at least that week), she immediately reacted like the coolest Golden Girl on ecstasy. "That's fine! Fine! It's much more important to be kind to one another."

I could hear the sarcasm crackling across the telephone wires to Texas.

Sure enough, when I told her I'd sent her a book from Amazon, she cracked: "Oh I know, I know what it is."

"What Mom?"

"A Bible."

The she laughed herself silly.

But joking that I was or am an atheist and living the Momism life every day are two entirely different things, for the Momism is a unique way of looking at the world my mother has not only shared with me and my brother, but her nephew and nieces and several hundred - thousand? - students she's taught over the years.

Her former students, some of whom I chat with on Facebook, are constantly telling me how great she was, how funny, how unique, how encouraging.

Yes, yes, yes, I know. It was a little like having a celebrity as a mother growing up in Livermore, Calif. I remember being forced to join her class once. I was sitting in the big circle with the other fourth graders when she called upon me, and I froze, and all eyes were on me.

I remember Mr. Matthews was the teacher I wanted, and somehow, miraculously my embarrassment led to my mother realizing she and I were not a great fit. It is just too weird to see one's mother in a role other than mother. It was as if she were wearing a superhero mask and all I wanted to do was pull it off.

Of course, none of this has to do with Momisms, which is when she says something like "I always have my finger with me" after I've tried to convince her why using a stylus is wise and she says no, she does not want to do it. Why?

"Because I always have my finger with me, and I don't a stylus."

Can't argue with that.

Momisms.

There was the time she corralled a bunch of the rowdy adolescents at my party by screaming at them, "Friends! Romans! Countrymen!  Lend me your ears!"

Good God, the only thing that would have been worse is if she'd told them I'd gotten my period and she'd taken me bra shopping.

Of course, there was the time when I brought home a young man who'd become my first real love.

"He's a gold mine," she said of him.

I never forgot that. She never called any of the 237 boyfriends who followed a gold mine, not even another precious metal.

Perhaps she got the gift of gab from my grandmother, Mama Sue, who taught geometry and calculus and once threw an eraser at her only daughter. I suppose Mom was talking with a boy in the back. Luckily no one was hurt, and it was a story for the ages. Mom never threw an eraser at me in class, but she's thrown me plenty of looks -- most mothers have.

So on this Mother's Day, I salute Mom and her Momisms. I can't imagine my life without her, or how I might have turned out had she dumped me at the side of the road and sold me to gypsies.

No, she never threatened to do that, but I inherited her flair for drama.