Traveling by buggy, horse, car, train, bus, airplane, helicopter, boat, anyway I can get there, to my childhood house where my Mother is celebrating her 89th Happy Birthday today!
When I get there I will walk past the front yard and see her two golden leaved trees on her parkway, walk passed the many stones my Father put down to decorate the driveway, and knock on the backdoor. It will be locked and I will wait till she opens it. There will be 2 locks and she will open them both.
I will give her a huge big bear hug and kiss on the cheek when I see her, she will look lovely as she always does, wearing a colorful festive matching outfit of clothes, and having her hair wispily brushed to the side, always combed so every hair is in place, but with the freedom of such beatutiful natural hair so she does not need a wig.
She will be shorter than me, she shortens her slacks when she buys tthem new, always to fit perfectly. She will be short, but like Napoleon, her stature will be great!
I will sing Happy Birthday to her as sweetly as I can, to bring lovely music to her ears played with the musical instrument of my voice box. I will then present to her a walnut cake that I baked myself, not using a mix, but instead baking it by scratch, with real walnuts, fresh flour, and yeast, and of course, with real yellow cow's butter, how she loves real butter, so creamy and sweet!
I will stay at her house for hours on end, and listen to her tell me all about my family history, about my grandparents, about her childhood, about her marriage to my Father, about anything she wants to talk to me about. I will provide a selfless listening ear to her so she feels she can entrust me with any information she wants to, to talk to me as a best friend, to savor every word she says to me and to remember them, to love her for her openness with me.
We will sit in her kitchen, with the yellow-flowered wallpaper, at the round wooden dining table she inherited from her parents, an antique of great value, and look together out her back window, seeing the birds gather at her birdfeeder: red cardinals, brown sparrows, black ravens, white turtledoves, you name it, they will all be there eating the seeds she has generously put down there for them. We will quietly gaze together outside passed the backyard fence and see the huge trees that grow in the distance visible to us from this large sunny picture kitchen window.
It will be the most joyous of all experiences of my life, to be there with her, to congratulate her on her landmark birthday, living longer than her mother, my grandmother, who passed away at 88 years old. I chant Kaddish for my Aunt Marie every Saturday as I promised my Mother I would do, for she was blessed to live to 92 years old, almost to 93. Longevity is in my roots, good genetics, a strong combination of inherited physical make-up, as we go back in our ancestry to a family who lived in the Czech Republic, residents of the beautiful city of Prague, a magical city filled with rich palaces and flowing rivers, a city of the greatest of everything!
I would then after spending the day with my Mother, kiss her again on the cheek and bid adieu to her, leaving by the backdoor, locking both doors behind me, and getting onto my bicycle, in my auto, or up onto my horse, and ride east of her house, galloping in a sunset that lights up my path and brings me back to my home.
Will again go galloping to see her, to be there in spirit and body, in heart and in mind, to my childhood home, anytime she wants to see me.
Happy 89th Birthday, Mother!
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