One of my Mom’s final wishes was to fill out her absentee ballot for the 2016 election, “So that that Wilde Chaya, (wild animal), shouldn’t get elected!”  I helped her do that, but, sadly, it wasn’t enough to carry Michigan.

My Mom was a hoot. She was the youngest of nine, although only two of her sisters and two bothers lived to adulthood.  She was born on leap year of 1920 in Detroit and was very much the product of the traditions, anxieties, joys and sadness of her Russian-Jewish immigrant roots.  She was a conundrum, with a big, kind heart and an irrationally inbred bigotry that would involuntarily surface from time to time.  She was unfiltered and would occasionally say things in my presence that would make me cringe.  So, we’d argue; loud, screaming confrontations that always made me ashamed because I knew that she held no capital, even when stubbornly holding her ground, in the intolerance of her pre-conditioned history.  But, mostly, I loved her madly and never felt for a second that she didn’t love me back.  She was, usually unintentionally, hilarious.  She was Mrs. Malaprop and Yogi Berra with the bawdiness of Totie Fields all rolled up into a less-than-five-foot package.  She baked and sewed and volunteered and was ever-present in the lives of her family and friends and countless strangers.  She was a world-class complainer and guilter but neither ever deterred her exuberant nature or kept her from dipping into her abundant well of charity.  She was a sparkly-eyed, giggly force of nature who lived more of her ninety-six plus years for others than herself.  We spoke weekly, without fail, for most of my adult life and daily for the last ten years of hers.  I miss her every day.

Happy Mother’s Day!