My mother, Velma De Morier, is 92 years old. Which is pretty impressive even before you add in the ands. See, she is 92 years old and still lives at home. She is 92 years old and still drives her car. She still takes care of her own bills, makes her own meals, buys her own groceries, makes muffins every Sunday for church and has the most active social life of any of us — if you’d like my mother to do something with you, choose a Tuesday or a Thursday. Those are her most flexible.
At 92 my mother remembers every family member’s birthday — including every niece, grandchild and great grandchild but then can go back to her grandparents and their extended families. And every summer we have a family reunion at her home where we will all travel for up to nine hours to descend on her Walton, NY, home for the weekend.
Now before you think that my mother is some kind of perfect human, it’s important to know that she —. Well, she sees the world a little differently. And this has nothing to do with her age, this is just her.
Here’s an example.
When I was in my twenties, a young guy on his own, I went to my parent’s home for the weekend. And like many young guys I brought a bag of laundry to do while I was there. So I did the laundry, the weekend passed and on Sunday night I said goodbye to my parents and drove the sixty miles back to my apartment in Binghamton, NY.
Now, when Monday morning came my mother got up and noticed that I had left some underwear in the dryer.
Oh no, my mother thought. My child is out there in the world without all of his clean underwear. So, Velma De Morier put the underwear in a clear —- and this is a very important part of the story — clear, plastic bag and high-tailed it the sixty miles to deliver the much needed underwear to her son.
Now, I had a small apartment at the time — my mother knew exactly where this apartment was and it provided several ideal places where you could discretely drop off underwear if needed — a fact I insisted on before signing the lease. But this was much more urgent than that. So, my mother headed to where I worked. And since it was a large corporation she drove around the buildings trying to find the main entrance. When she couldn’t, she saw some people outside one of the buildings on a smoke break.
Do you know my son? — my mother asked. And since there were over a thousand employees and I hadn’t been there that long, he didn’t. So my mother gave the man the clear bag of underwear and instructed him to give it to me. The poor guy walked the clear bag of underwear to the main building secretary. Who walked it to the second building secretary. Who gave it to the sales secretary. Who called and got the purchasing secretary to pick it up. Who was given the bag and was nice enough to drop it off on my cubicle chair.
In twenty minutes my underwear saw more of those buildings then I did for the two years I was there.
Now, the fascinating aspect of this story is that when you tell it to my mother she looks at you with that — yeah? What’s your point? expression. Because from her perspective there is absolutely nothing wrong with her actions. There was a job to do and she did it. Over.
Now, I have dozens of stories like this — ones where she had a pond dug out for us and then a few hours later realized that ponds were dangerous and had it filled back in, ones where I heard knocking on my apartment door and opened it to find four fireman there because my phone had tipped off the hook and my mother thought the apartment had filled with gas, and a few on how she nearly drowned me trying to teach me to swim — my mother can’t swim a stroke but figured the basic skills were teachable.
So you are dealing with someone that sees the world with a unique perspective.
Which is exactly the point of one of her biggest strengths.
Every Thanksgiving my mother and my mother-in-law come down to stay with us for a few days. Now, during this time I take both the grandmothers to an Amish General Store nearby that has everything from craft items to discount canned goods. Both women love it and I have a great time going through every aisle with my mom as she picks out her canned goods — canned peaches – three for a dollar, peas and carrots – fifty cents a can: she is an excited person.
Now when I take my mother home, she places her canned goods and dry goods in her already full pantry. Which brings me to the point.
My mother has a kitchen full of canned fruits and vegetables, canned soups, muffin mixes, some frozen meat and coffee. That’s pretty much all she wants and all she needs. And every day — if she’s not out to dinner with someone — she walks out to her kitchen and opens a can of soup or warms up some stewed tomatoes. That’s her dinner and that’s all she wants.
She never —- and I mean ever — walks into her kitchen and says, there’s nothing to eat here. She never — and I mean ever, looks at the canned goods and says, ughh, I feel like pizza. And she never, and I mean ever, feels like she is skimping or going without.
Now the irony is that my mother is a very particular person. She likes her coffee right out of the pot plus 15 seconds in the microwave. She doesn’t like grape jelly or chocolate and the last time she visited us, when she asked for a wash cloth and I gave her one she looked at it and said — don’t you have a thinner one?
Who in the world has a washcloth preference?
So she likes things a certain way, which makes her gratitude, simplicity and appreciation all that more amazing.
When there is snow predicted in her area I always call and ask if she has enough food — I know the answer but I like hearing her say it.
Oh, I have plenty, she says. And she does. We all do.
In a world where we have a thousand TV channels and there is nothing on. When we look at a full refrigerator and say there’s nothing to eat. When we walk through a house with games and books and sporting equipment and paper and pens and say there’s nothing to do — we need to think like Velma thinks.
We need to see all the plenty.
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