Mom's Day

“How come she wrote it that way?” Monte asked. “"To my honey". Not what most moms would say to their kid.”

It was an odd moment for me. Monte was looking at my only remaining photo of my mother. Normally the little frame stood on the fake mantle in my bedroom. I had moved it to the living room because it was the eve of Mother’s Day and I wanted to see her all night and all the next day.

It was an odd moment because of the losses we shared. Monte’s mother died in childbirth and his father left him with his grandmother soon after. Cindy’s father Ray was with us. He watched Cindy’s mother die of tuberculosis soon after they came to this country from Cuba. I lost my father to the Vietnam War when I was pretty small and my mother within a year of my high school graduation. Mother’s Day was a bittersweet event for each of us.

“It’s because of my skin tone,” I told Monte. “She called me her honey boy because she thought my skin was the color of honey.”

“You miss her don’t you?” Monte asked, maybe a bit rougher than he meant to. “You’re lucky you got somebody to miss.”

“Mother Washington is more mother to you than most get,” Ray said, sipping at a beer. “You ought to appreciate that. In fact, she’s a mother to everybody on the block, and everybody in her church. Did you get her something nice?”

“Didn’t know what to get, so I got a box of candy.” To his credit, he didn’t sound proud of it. Monte’s not quite a teenager, but he already has a good sense of what’s right and what isn’t.

“Every mom wants to feel special on Mother’s Day,” I said, looking deep into my own mother’s celluloid eyes. “Is it the same with Father’s Day, Ray?”

Ray thought a minute, and I could see his eyes fading back to when Cindy was Monte’s age, before Ray’s hair deserted him and ambition left him behind. “You know, at one time Father’s Day was very important to me. I remember how bad I wanted my little girl to see how hard I worked at raising her. Not just the trips to the park, you know, but the skinned knees I tended, the slumber parties I put up with, the days I pretended not to know she did something wrong, the nights I chased the bad boys away. All of it.”

“She appreciates it,” I said.

“Maybe. But she sure didn’t when she was a kid.”

“You’ll always be her father,” I said, lightly punching his shoulder. “That’s where Cindy has it over me and Monte here.”

“Well, I did all I could, but I’m through,” Ray said, slowly crushing his beer can. “She don’t need a father no more, she’s on her own. And you know, I’m not her friend the way…” he swallowed, his mouth already dry. “The way my Juanita was.”

“I get that,” I said, pulling another beer out of its plastic loop and handing it to Ray. “I mean, my dad was a soldier’s soldier. Maybe that’s just the thing with dads. They can be friends or they can be trainers.”

“Yeah, us men, we ain’t got the goods to be both. That’s what makes mothers special.” Ray clinked his beer can against mine. “Guys, even the best of us, can only be in one place at a time.”

“Y’all saying Grandma can be in two places at once?” Monte asked, eyeing the beer.

“You bet,” Ray said. “She can lead you, stand beside you, and get behind you, all at the same time. That’s what a mother can do.”

“Pretty poetic for a cab driver,” I said. “You deserved a gift on both days for raising Cindy alone.”

Ray waved the notion away. “Guys don’t care about that stuff. All I ever wanted on Father's Day was for the kid to call or come by and say thanks for trying. The rest is just… well it’s like wrappings on a present, you know? Guys don’t care about that crap but you know it’ll spoil it for the kid if you show you don’t care so you keep it to yourself.”

It was my turn to drift away. I was counting back, one year at a time, through the Mother’s Day presents I had given Mama. I got back to second grade before the memory train ran out of track.

“Mom’s ain’t like that at all. They make every flower, every card, every little gift bought with your allowance seem like solid gold and just what she was praying for. They make you feel good, just by appreciating your effort and a little thought. I know some of that reaction was for my benefit, and some was probably just tradition, like the gift wrapping you mentioned. But I know that mostly she loved whatever I did for her just cause I did it, just like I know she loved me no matter what I did.”

“That’s what makes a mother,” Ray said. “They love you no matter what. And you only get so many chances to tell her she’s special. So you got to be sure to go to your mom or whoever’s been your mom on Sunday and say thank you. Thank you for trying and for caring.”

I know that last bit was aimed right at Monte. I looked at him, and then at Ray, and we all seemed to be in the same place. I was the first one to stand up.

“You were right, Ray. Mother Washington has been a mother to all of us on the block. Come on. Let’s the three of us go out and see if we can find her something really special for tomorrow.”