It is the day after Mother's Day, 2010. I have just finished walking the dog with my extra thick sunglasses and tears behind them. My mother Jeannette, who was about as perfect as a mother could be, died in 1990 at 75 of cancer. I was 40 at the time, busy with my young twins and husband, but I flew the red eye to be there. There was never a day when I didn't talk to her on the phone for about a hour. But that day my sister and I left Johns Hopkins bereft of the woman who was the center of our lives. I clutched my mother's purse on my lap. I looked inside and found her prescription sunglasses. I put them on and winced. How bad could her eyes have been? The prescription was so strong I could see nothing but blur. I gently put them back in their case and took them home with me, shoving them in a drawer.
Years later I found the glasses and put them on. Yep. By then I could see through them perfectly. They are big and round ("Jackie O" style). I wear them when I drive and walk around persistently sunny California. I wear them because not only can I see well with them; when I wear them, I play a kind of spiritual game. I pretend that when I put on my mother's glasses, somehow she can see all the amazing things she missed: her twin grandsons grown into bright, capable young men. Her daughter winning writing awards. Her son-in-law winning teaching awards. Her other daughter receiving kudos as a food writer and cooking teacher and living a beautiful life on a horse farm with five talented grandchildren, Jeannette's great grandchildren. A grandson becoming a doctor...on and on stretch the list of the missed wonders. I put on those thick dark glasses and hope she can see it all.
My mother loved baseball. On summer nights she listened to games on the radio. To me, the sounds of night baseball were soothing lullabies. The melodies began in Brooklyn with her beloved Dodgers. Then when my father died so young, and we moved to Baltimore, I fell asleep to the Orioles' night music. Yesterday I heard about a young pitcher who pitched a perfect game on Mother's Day. You don't have to love baseball to love the story. His mother died when he was a senior in high school, so Dallas Braden was raised by his grandmother, who was there yesterday when he pitched his perfect game.
For those unfamiliar with the sport, this is a rare feat. Only 19 other major league pitchers have ever pitched a perfect game. 27 batters up; 27 down. He wore his mother's wedding ring around his neck and kissed it before he embraced his grandmother and then faced his overjoyed teammates.
This is my perfect pitch for Mother's Day, 2010, the day after. I want to thank that young pitcher. I hope my mother saw the game, too. She would have loved it. Today I raise my/her glasses to all the mothers who nurture human seeds, the most delicate of all growing things, but do not live long enough to see the results of their loving care. I suppose that's the idea behind sending flowers, but next year, maybe just send a baseball...
