The Soul of a 106 Year Old Woman
Maybe it is because I still talk about the grippe (for the uninitiated, now commonly known as the flu). Or it could be a result of how I worry to the extreme. Whatever the catalyst, and there are many, my son says I have channeled the soul of my dead mother, who would have turned 106 this coming Monday. Maybe.
The saying is that you are only as old as you feel. My mom's variation on this theme was that you are only as old as you say you are. Her 39 and holding mantra, her birth date reported as different years to various federal and state agencies, her creating the fiction with me that she was four years the junior of my dad when the reality appears to be that she popped into the universe before him, make me a bit wobbly as to exactly how old my soul really is.
But wherever the truth lies (isn't that an interesting juxtaposition of words sliding into one another) it is a slight slight turned sweet compliment to be attached like an umbilical cord to my mom. Which I was. And some would contend I still am.
Each of us carries something of our parents with us as we meander through our lives. A gesture, a posture, a temperament, an affection or even a distaste. Have any of us been free of a comment along the way from someone familiar with our parents who says "that reminds me of him" or "that is something she would have said" or, "I know that look"?
I understand I may be more than a bit like an old Jewish woman, speaking sometimes in a language that is foreign to the ears of anyone born after we landed on the moon (if we did, for all you conspiracy theorists). And yes, my level of concern for the welfare of those in my ambit can sometimes seem borderline neurotic, ok a bit over the border, but I would not have it any other way.
At least when it means I get to be compared to, and share a moment with, my mom. 106, possibly, and counting.