A lot of things she said cracked us up, worried us, or embarrassed us. Sometimes all at once. I doubt most of them were original, but the way she used them, they were hers. Even during my teenage years, after I'd heard them all a thousand times, they would still crack me up. Even in front of my friends.
My brother, Bill, recalls, (you'll have to ask him how fondly) her saying, "I brought you into this world and I can take you out." I don't recall her saying that to me. Draw from this what you will.
Most double mastectomy breast cancer survivors don't tend to make a lot of jokes about it. Bill reminded me that Mom did.
"I was standing in a group (at Publix) showing off some new meatballs and my boob dropped onto the floor."
("Who else could say that with a straight face?" -Bill)
He forgot to mention the second part. "As I bent over to pick it up, apologizing to the embarrassed man in front of me, the other one fell out!"
The one that always made me nervous was the one she used if she owed me something, such as if she were a couple of bucks short at the grocery store and borrowed it from me.
"Mom, may I have my two dollars?"
"What two dollars?"
"You borrowed it from me a couple of days ago at Safeway, remember?"
"Don't worry. I'll owe you til I die before I'll cheat you out of it."
"..."
Even when it made me nervous, the way she said it, so innocently, so sincerely, so tauntingly (all at once), usually made me smile.
She would have done well on stage.
Dad has a great sense of humor as well, but Mom articulated hers a lot more. We kids all ended up with it. When our self described "Evil stepmother" (who I lovingly call Mom now that Mom #1 is gone)-- a wonderful counselor and hospice manager-- called us together to help us prepare for Mom's death (her 412th (whatever) bout with cancer was finally claiming her physical life), it rapidly degenerated into a joke fest, discussing things such as bronzing Mom and standing her up over her grave, and what her pose should be (picking up her rubber boob after it fell out?). Wink just stared at us at first, then relaxed. We might not cope normally, but we'd cope.
And we have.
As I finished writing this, I realized that Mom kept her promise. Over my childhood and teenage years she probably borrowed $20 - $30 ($50 to $100 in today's money) from me. She owed me til she died, but she never cheated me out of it.
