I’m not much for marking the calendar at every event that occurs in my life.  Life, by its nature, is a continuous series of events and if you celebrate or note EVERY event that affects your course through its entirety, well, as you get older you won’t have time to do anything ELSE.  Still, it has been twenty years since the day my mother-in-law passed away and that, in itself, is worthy of note.

There are a lot of memories that spring to mind at a time like this:  big family events, major holidays, important gatherings.  These aren’t the things that stand out with greatest intensity, however.  The really meaningful memories are the little things.  Moments of everyday life; items which fill out the whole of her character…not Mom standing in a reception line greeting many people, but Mom working in the kitchen with one of her girls.  Not she and her husband sitting on the couch surrounded by kids in one of those posed Christmas shots, but sitting off to the side while her grandchildren open gifts…watching with the joyful eyes only a grandmother can have.  These are the kinds of pictures that come to mind – plucked from a nearly unmanageable wall of remembrances.  The easy smile.  Her walk and her voice and her laugh.  The things she liked and the people she cared for…

Beyond all else, she loved to visit.  While her favorite topic was her grandchildren, in person or on the phone (back then, we used those ancient things that were tethered to the wall), she could talk on any subject.  It was said in jest by someone, and I’m not positive who it was so I won’t mention that it was her husband, that the phone could ring and Mom could answer and be finished in ten minutes – but only if it was a wrong number.  It became standard practice during long distance phone calls to state immediately that you were really busy and couldn’t talk…which would keep the conversation down to a manageable half hour, maybe 45 minutes.  Thinking myself quick and innovative, I would try to come up with unique ways of getting off the phone like, “Gotta’ go!  The baby just threw the cat into the ceiling fan!”  Being a conscientious mother and grandmother, however, she’d just call back shortly to check on the baby or the fan or tell you how to get cat hair off the furniture.  She was probably just worried about our second son, Pierce, who I lovingly referred to as “the Demon Child”.  Still, she always liked him, even then, and was probably afraid I’d hang him from the ceiling fan.  She really had nothing to worry about – while it had occurred to me to try that, chances are good he would have liked it and I’d never have been able to keep him down from the thing.

Like most people who enjoy verbal communication, Mom used many “colloquial” or “informal” conversational phrases that grew into habit over years of use.  Everyone does this to some degree and in many cases it becomes trademark to a persons’ speech.  Sort of like Bruce Willis swearing constantly in his early movies whether the situation called for it or not.  Let’s face it, it must be habit because Bruce really didn’t seem to have a lot to swear about.  He made a lot of money and seemed to be in good health.  He had a beautiful wife, Demi Moore, who also had a lot of money and was in visibly good health.  Maybe he was mad about losing his hair so early, who knows.

Anyway, one of Moms’ favorite phrases was, “That’s the case of…”  She would use this to preface a statement explaining one thing or another, or to present a common sense analogy.  Something like:

“That’s the case of, if they don’t like what you’re wearing they should buy you something else.”

It didn’t matter where she put the phrase.  She was so smooth and fluid with the usage that it always fit right in wherever it was.  I always smiled when she said it and it’s one of the first things I think of now.

Verna hadn’t been ill and she was still quite young, which made her death a terrible shock.  Even so, I should point out in her defense that Mom was never one to take forever doing something.  Once she made up her mind, she was, by God, going to do it.  Of course, getting her to change her mind was about as easy as getting a big, macho, professional sports figure to put on a dress.  Okay, bad example, Dennis Rodman, but you get the idea, anyway.  The need to get her to change her mind didn’t arise often because she was a good and friendly soul.  Regardless of the tough front she would show on occasion, she would give you every opportunity to prove yourself…especially if she liked you.  The only real transgression one could commit was to act in some way against one of her children or grandchildren.  At that point you could just as well take her off your Christmas card list – and I would have advised against opening any suspicious packages, as well.  This sin was nearly unforgivable unless maybe you felt a tremendous amount of remorse and performed some type of painful self-sacrifice such as tying yourself into an uncomfortable chair and watching golf on television until you lapsed into a coma and died of dehydration.  And besides, the fact that such an action could be considered counter-productive on a personal level, I’m not sure it would have changed her mind, anyway.

I was lucky enough never to have to worry about that; Mom liked me…but, please, don’t hold that against her character.  A good friend of hers told me at her service that I had been her “pet”.  While that explains why her daughter still keeps me on a short leash, I was very touched to hear that she appreciated my membership in her family so much that she actually admitted it to others.  My own mother can barely do that without bursting into tears (although, in her defense, she’s my mother, so she’s earned that right).  Of course, Verna and I had several things in common aside from one of her daughters and four of her grandchildren.  She was quick to laugh and would rather find humor in a situation than dwell upon the negative.  Oh, she would mention the negative and she’d never forget the negative, but she wouldn’t dwell on it.  Also, she didn’t have much time for people who took themselves too seriously.  That’s clearly no problem for me since I have difficulty taking the Internal Revenue Service seriously (I don’t need to.  Just try talking to them…they take themselves seriously enough.)

Mom was a simple woman.  She came from common, simple beginnings and, as far as I could tell, she never aspired to be any more than that…probably because she felt that to be other than a “regular person” wasn’t really better.  I know she would have liked to have had a bit more money, but more for the purpose of having fewer bills and a couple less worries than to have more “things”.  She probably would have worn the same kind of clothes and kept the same old but well cared for…pieces of furniture.  (My father-in-law would have expected me to say “husband”, and I thought about it.  She would have chuckled at that.)  I always wanted to buy them a different car, but aside from the fact that I couldn’t afford it, I could never determine what Mom liked.  She didn’t care for the square, angular designs because they looked like “a box”.  The rounded, aerodynamic style wasn’t to her liking because they look like an “upside-down bathtub”.  If she’d had what she really wanted she probably would have opted for a car just like the one she had, only in better shape.  I guess I could live with that, but I never really cared for the vehicle.  It always reminded me of a battleship…except it wasn’t grey, it was a couple feet longer than an actual battleship and had fewer antennas sticking out the top.

In her last few years Mom had begun to acquire an ever-so-slightly bent walk.  I think the main cause of that was her purse, an area where she faced two almost insurmountable problems:  she tried to be prepared for almost every contingency and she was a grandma.  Verna ordinarily carried a black, inexpensive, conservatively styled purse which I believe was made by the personal products division of the Steamer Trunk & Trailer Company.  I could never understand how she could tote the darn thing over extended periods.  But then, she needed to have her wallet and checkbook.  And some Kleenex, of course.  And pictures of the grandkids were a necessity, not to mention numerous pens, pencils, notepaper, envelopes, stamps, coupons, maybe some candy, a small screwdriver and a spare tire for a ’78 Ford.  Not a full size spare, mind you.  Just one of those goofy little fake ones that prompt you to get your original tire repaired because the spare looks so stupid on your car.  Actually, I’m just kidding.  Not about the little spare looking stupid, I mean about Mom having a spare in her purse…BUT, she may have had enough stuff in there to fix one!

These are just a very few of the memories I grasp in this time of reflection.  Innumerable tears have been shed for the loss and many stragglers will follow them over time.  But Moms’ life was nothing to cry about.  She lived the life she had with love in her heart and a smile on her face and, in my own sorrow-evading way, that’s what I like to remember.

Naturally, in the case of a sudden parting such as this there is always a lack of closure; of things that could have been said.  If I had the chance to talk to her, for just a few minutes, I’d tell her how much she is loved and how much she means to us and how much we all miss her…

In her understanding way, Mom would say, “I know, Son…”

And not being able to stop with that, she would smile and say, “But that’s the case of…”

          Personal Electronic Communication.

          These are the buzzwords for the coming decades – whether you capitalize them or not.  Actually, you can hear them buzzing and beeping and whistling and ringing everywhere you go.  The air is filled with assorted frequencies of electromagnetic waves radiating in all directions, missing your spleen by mere microns – some of them even passing through your head!

          This appalling situation can be traced back to two people…Adam and Eve.  No!  Though I guess we can blame pretty much everything on them if we could keep from having a literal and religious argument, that’s a little farther back than I meant to go.  The people I was thinking of were Alexander Graham Bell who, with his assistant Watson (a professional assistant who formerly worked for Sherlock Holmes) invented the telephone, and Marconi, who invented those little elbow noodles and also had something to do with radio…I think.  I believe it was the military that first united these two ideas into wireless communication.  For this reason, early on in this technology you were bombarded by radio waves generated mostly by military messages.  You may have heard these unrefined signals in your head by means of a paranormal phenomenon called, um, bio-electromagnetic reception, a known scientific effect, which I just made up.  It’s possible you mistook these messages for an announcement over the speaker system in one of those big department stores.

“Attention Maj…(garble, garble) systems int…(fuzz, pop) arg lnt ez fangle…over, thank you.”

          While this may be similar to what you heard in your head, the high-tech, state of the art electronic equipment used by the military at that time enabled the trained soldiers receiving the communications to hear, well, pretty much the same jumbled message.  The Signal Corps, however, sent these soldiers through intense screenings, serious testing and in-depth training to enable them to understand these messages.  This training program was so effective that it is employed today by fast food restaurants in teaching their employees to understand orders at the drive-through window.

          Thanks to these and several other technological advancements, such as additional expendable cash, you are today walking around in an atmosphere teeming with Captain Kirk-ular communication on all levels of society.  Calls ranging from top-level, multi-gazillion dollar business dealings to queries on the status of the monthly economic assistance check.  Many people don’t even have telephones, or, as they call them now, “land lines,” at home.  Because of that fact, you can no longer tell your boss you were outside, or you ran to the store or you couldn’t answer his call because you were at a PTA meeting and he can expect you to answer his call at any time of day. 

`Well, thank you very much!

And where can we aim our gratitude?  That would be the mobile or cellular phone, the precursor to the “communicator” used only by the “Federation” on Star Trek because the intergalactic service plan costs so much that only the government can afford the monthly fees.  The word “cellular” is a technical term which means that eventually, through dealer incentives, lower costs and a trained and knowledgeable sales force, even small one celled creatures like amoebas and various other intelligent microscopic organisms will own and operate these communication devices.  Unfortunately the development and mobilization of this area of science has also put wheels on other aspects of personal electronic communication.  The answering machine, for instance, has become a part of the service plans supplied by the cellular service carrier (a small service charge may apply per answered call – or after a base number of calls – or per month – or on any message received from cellular phones in AMC Gremlins – or…).  Yes, through modern technology you can now be out even when you’re not in. 

“I’m sorry, but Bob is at home now.  If you leave your name and number with a brief message, Bob will return your call the next time he’s gone.”

          Of course, you can use this service to screen your mobile calls the same way you used to when you only had a phone at home.  With this system there will soon be phone solicitors calling to sell you tires, lube jobs, new cars or even a better cellular plan…provided you give them the names and license numbers of all the friends and relatives you regularly call.

          Another phone pheature which took to traveling is the ignore idea.  This is more commonly and euphemistically known as the “hold” button.  Either way, you’re still being ignored.  The positive point to this is for the first time while on hold you can have something to do besides stare at a sink full of dirty dishes or look at the pile of paperwork on your desk.  Now you can dodge in and out of traffic at interstate speeds, a phone stuck in your ear with one hand, the other hand on the wheel and the cruise control set fast enough to get you to next week by tomorrow.  Oh, you could use the hands- free speaker phone mode, but the sound quality is somewhat lacking …to the point that no matter what you say, the person on the other end of the connection hears:

                     “bzzzzzt…ould you like fries with that?”

In addition, you can send a written message if you don’t want to actually converse with the people you’re talking to.  This is also a wonderful complementary option to other social networking options such as Facebook, MySpace, LookAtMe and HoldMyBeerAndWatchThis.    I believe it is spelled “d-i-s-t-r-a-c-t-e-d  d-r-i-v-i-n-g” by the insurance and law enforcement communities.

          Perhaps cellular headsets should be more available for motorists who spend a great deal of time on their phones.  This would allow them to place both hands on the wheel while they weave in and out of traffic accidents involving people who dodge in and out of traffic at interstate speeds with one hand…well, you get the idea.  Of course, it is entirely possible that these people fell asleep at the wheel – probably while they were on hold at cellular phone rates waiting for their party to answer, but that’s just a guess.