My mom asked me to…

The way I was raised..if your mother asked you to do something…well, you did it!  It is for this reason that I have been living with a slight degree of guilt for the last couple of years.  O.K.  It is more then slight guilt, and it has been more then a couple of years, but who’s counting?

Let me set the scene for you.  It is a sunny day in November 2005…or was is 2004?  The guilt has me confused!  We were in Colorado celebrating the 50th Wedding Anniversary of my parents.  All five of their children were in attendance.  Our opening presentations were truly Oscar worthy..we are an amazing bunch of kids. I’m sure you are already wishing that you were there too.  (Come on….cut me some slack here, the years of guilt has me slightly dilusional.)

One by one, in chronological order of age, each of  us children took the microphone to share some words about our parents.  We were all very eloquent, witty, delightful, humorous, and totally brilliant.  (Ooops, sorry, slipping again.)  Being child number four, I spoke fourth. I guess that might have been obvious…?

Anyway…my mother asked me that night to write down what I had said so that she could save it.  “Sure, Mom. No problem.”  Uhhmm.  Maybe it was a slight problem, because I haven’t done it yet.  Doh!   Now, if you have been able to follow all the mathematical equations so far, you have beaten me to the conclusion that I AM LATE. Bad daughter. Bad, bad daughter.  But never fear Mom, you have taught me well.  “Better late then never” will be the lesson I will call on, right next to the “Always do what your mother asks you to do” lesson. So, here goes, to the best of my recollection.

“My younger brother, Tom, and I talk to each other every morning on the phone as we commute to work.  We typically talk about business, solving each others corporate problems.  We are brilliant that way, just ask us! (yes, I really said that…oops!)  and we talk about family.  One day we got to talking about our parents.  We pondered the question of which parent was the worrier.  I thought that it was Mom. Tom thought it was Dad.  We discussed this for a while until we realized that we really didn’t know.  Who was the stricter parent?  We didn’t know.  We talked about a few more personality traits until we realized what a truly united couple they always were.  As parents you didn’t know where one ended and the other began.  There was no playing one against the other…they were truly in this together.  What a great example they gave us.  Like Mary mentioned before me, yes I want to be like my Mom when I grow up, but mostly, I want to LOOK like my Mom.  She still looks so amazing!”

Whew!  Here you go, Mom. Better late then never, right?  You and Dad still got it goin’ on.  I love you both!