May 12. Not a good day for my siblings and myself. An albatross of a Mother’s day. 15 years ago my mother passed away on Mother’s Day, perhaps to ensure that we would never ever forget Mother’s Day. Not that we ever did, we actually liked her. It was her husband that we had issues with.

A few days before Mother’s Day I called her to tell her that I wouldn’t be able to see her on Mother’s Day. She was ok with the fact, or at least she said she was. Her heart was probably broken by the fact that I wasn’t going to be there. I asked her if there was anything she might have wanted for a gift and she said she didn’t want anything. Somehow we wound up talking about death though, and how when she died she wanted to go out like a Viking. Meaning put her corpse on a boat and set it aflame and send it out to sea.

I told her that the Environmental Protection Agency might have a problem with that. It was a nice call and we ended up laughing. It was also the last time I talked to her. She was great and a lot of fun and in a lot of pain due to the fact that my father, her husband was an asshole. Basically he was a bigger baby than the four children they had and demanded all of her time. She was old school and wouldn’t divorce him.

My mother was the only girl with five brothers. She was the one who taught my brothers and myself how to throw a ball and how to play baseball. She learned all that from her brothers growing up. My old man certainly couldn’t be bothered.

She was well liked by a lot of people. I worked with her for a few years, she worked in the office and I worked in the warehouse, eventually I got the job driving interoffice mail between the Saddle Brook offices and the Headquarters in midtown Manhattan. I saw how she was regarded by most everyone she came into contact with. Being her son got me out of a lot of trouble at that job too. Once they realized I was Mary’s son, I was off the hook.

She was great and I really miss her. Her laugh, the way she talked. I was devoted to her. No wonder they had to pry my fingers off the fence to get me into school a lot of the time. I couldn’t fathom how she could desert me and leave me with these kids and nuns. I felt that way for at least the first couple of years, which more than likely had an effect on how I viewed school.

In 1976 my mother and I took a bus trip to Amish Country in Pennsylvania. It was for a few days. I don’t know why we went, but I was glad we did. I found an old photograph from that trip, me in a blue and red rugby shirt, plaid shorts, and red and yellow tube socks, topped off by a denim hat. She is in a green and white pantsuit and we are both standing next to a giant pretzel.

She didn’t really understand me, but loved me with the love only a mother could have. She had a great sense of humor and I think my sister and brothers got a lot of that good humor from her. When she passed away she was doing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle and I commented that since the puzzle probably killed her we should sue the Times since there was no warning that 27 across was a real killer.

She would’ve have slapped my arm and laughed telling how bad I was for saying that. I wish my nieces and nephews could have had a chance to meet and know their grandmother. I wish I could’ve had more time with her, much like my sister and brothers do.

She knew a lot about movies and music and consoled me when John Lennon died. She couldn’t bear to see my devastation. She told me stories about taking my sister to see ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ or ‘Help!’ and how the girls would scream when the Beatles were on screen. It really helped.

She was able to see three of her children get married to really good people and wished the same for me. Even though she knew I was gay, she couldn’t believe it, thinking it was just a phase. Even when she flew out to California to be there when my sister had her son, Earl, Annemarie told her it was no phase.

She was a good Catholic also. Annemarie and I think she baptized Earl in the way that any Catholic can perform a baptism in a time of emergency and the emergency was that Annemarie wasn’t going to have Earl baptized. So to cover all bases and make sure that Earl gets into heaven my mother did it.

She was great and I miss her. Mary Anna Powers rocked.