Her Gift

     When my mother answers the phone, she is so joyful that it seems she has been waiting all her life for you to call.  Her “Hello,” is a song more than a greeting.  Just her “Hello” can cheer up your day.  My parents used to spend the winter in Florida before they moved there full time, and when they left Chicago I would spend the first few days mixing up their two phone numbers.  One day I dialed, and a woman answered with a pretty depressing, low energy “Hello?” and I immediately said, “You’re not my mother!”  She sighed, and then replied, “No, my children never call.”  Well, no wonder.

            My mother makes a point of showing everyone her very best self.  She is beautiful, and charming and kind.  I’ve seen her walk right up to a famous celebrity to chat, and after a few sentences, reach right up and adjust the woman’s blouse so her bra strap did not show. She treats everyone as if they were her childhood friends.

My mother is the woman who sees you trying on a dress in a department store and tells you how beautiful you look, and although you never have said this out loud, you wind up telling her that you think your neck looks too long.  But she says no, your neck is lovely, and she lends you her earrings so you can see that only someone with a long, lovely neck like yours could wear such large gold hoops.  And then she tells you that she just got the earrings on sale at Saks, and she still has the coupon for an extra ten percent off which she stuffs into your purse.  And so you buy the dress and walk over to Saks and your only regret is that you didn’t get her advice about shoes.

My mother has charisma.  Not the fake charisma of high school cheerleaders or car salesmen—but real charisma, the kind I imagine JFK had, or Marilyn Monroe.  She has the kind of charisma that not only gets her what she wants, but makes everyone adore her in the process. She is beloved by the restaurant hostesses she hugs and kisses upon her arrival, and who always find her a table even on the busiest Saturday nights.  She is the one you ask to return the mascara you bought three months ago but just used last week and discovered makes your eyes itch, because she can charm even the nastiest salesperson.  She is a revered fundraiser for her favorite charities, because no one can ever say no.

            At lunch with my friends, someone will often make a disparaging remark about her mother, and the rest of us will nod in agreement.  I once complained about my mother’s cooking and I was practically stoned.  “We love your mother!” they said like a Greek chorus.  And I learned that no one was interested in any of her faults.

            My girlfriends tell me how their mothers gossip about their sisters-in-laws, or how they criticize their children.  On the contrary, my mother thinks that everything we do is wonderful.  When I toilet trained my son and he finally made a “poop in the potty,” my mother paraded him around the house and cheered him like he was the King of England.  I had to remind her that is was in fact, poop, although I used a different word.

            I grew up surrounded by this kind of encouragement.  Of course as a teenager I knew that there were times my mother hated how I dressed, but she never said so.  If I asked her opinion she would say, “Oh, you look great, you look great!”  But I had decoded her secret language and knew that when she said it twice, she was trying to convince herself.  I would usually go upstairs to change.

     

            Being raised by such a mother makes a person shockingly well adjusted.  I have the self-esteem of someone who was loved early and often.  I do not spend much time worrying whether I am smart enough or pretty enough—I have always known that I am just right, thank you.  All I have to do is look in the mirror and see her face on my face, and I know.