Sometimes, when I was very young, my mother made me cringe with embarrassment. For example, on the few occasions when she and Aunt Rose would attend an elementary school performance, I always knew she was there because I could see her laying across Aunt Rose’s lap in an effort to get a better look at me as she waved and yelled, “Yoo Hoo!” On the other hand, she bought me the red Space Patrol dress, complete with gold lightning-flash insignia, after which I lusted. Not only that, when my Kindergarten teacher came to our house to see what dresses I owned that might be appropriate for our school’s May Day Festival, Ma convinced her to let me be a Space Patrol crew member, rather than a little flower in a pastel number. As I was thinking about the ways Ma made me giggle, it struck me that I have no memory of hearing or seeing my father laugh. How can that possibly be? He wasn’t mean; he didn’t yell; he just didn’t laugh, at least not while I was around. He didn’t mind making me laugh, though. Ma got fat, and then she got gas. Every day she’d let one rip loud enough to make the shutters rattle, and every day my father would yell in reply, “Get it fixed!” They had that sort of rapport. Each day when my father walked into the house after work, my mother would be waiting to open the door for him and sing this ditty as she lifted her face for a hello kiss, “Come along my honey, give me your money.” Then he would plant a kiss on her face and head for the bedroom, where he was free to lounge in bed, reading, until dinner was served. She always knew when he was due home. At the same time six days a week she would walk down the stairs to our garage and lift open the heavy wooden door. This was because it was too inconvenient for my father to actually get out of his car, G-d forbid, and open the door himself. Twenty minutes later my father would drive a Cadillac too big for the garage into the back wall, get out, and close the door on the tail of the car. Ma could hear the squeak of the hinges so she knew to be ready to open the front door for her man, G-d forbid he should open the door for himself. Usually, when they went out to eat, Ma would spill food on her chest. If she failed to do this, they could count on their waiter spilling it for her. She had a magnetic relationship with food morsels. One time, at a fancy dinner, the waiter dumped an entire bowl of chicken noodle soup on her head. My father never missed a beat; he just kept telling whatever story was on his mind, while she sat dripping noodles. That time the restaurant paid the dry cleaning fees. My favorite memories of food missing Ma’s mouth were the French Fries. She would dip them in ketchup and then drop one down her bosom. First she would pull her blouse away so she could see how far down it had fallen. Then she’d reach inside, retrieve the escapee, pop it in her mouth, and swab her cleavage with her napkin. I’ve been told this is a common scenario for women of a certain build. After my father died, Ma moved into a 2-bedroom apartment and took up knitting and sleeping pills. Not long after, my sister came to town and stayed with her, so I joined them for an evening visit. As we were making preparations to tuck her safely into bed, we noticed she was moving her hands as if she was knitting, only the needles and yarn were missing. “What are you doing, Ma?” “I’m knitting.” “There’s nothing in your hands, Ma.” “I know.” “Don’t you think you should go to bed now?” “I will, as soon as I finish this row.” My sister and I were both knitters so we knew exactly which stitches she was making in thin air. Knit five, pearl five, and repeat. We watched in fascination as she finished her imaginary row, gathered up her invisible work and placed it in a non-existent knitting bag at the side of her chair. Then, satisfied that all was in order, she got up and went to bed without saying another word. That became the mother we knew from then on. She lived in her own world and it was occasionally a very funny one. For instance, when she decided to join her sister at the senior center afternoon ballroom dances, she did so unlike any of the other ladies who took the event seriously, were on perpetual diets, and dressed in pretty clothes, none of which Ma did. When a partner would accidentally knock her wig onto the floor, she’d pick it up, plop it back on her head, and grin. These mortified men would be so relieved they’d become her slaves, even when she’d get lost in the middle of an underarm turn, stare off in the distance with her back to them and holler “Where are you?” When asked who she like dancing with best, she’d reply, “The one who brings me the most cookies and coffee.” The other ladies started getting jealous. Finally, they approached her with serious concern. “Mary, why do you get all the dances? What do you have that we don’t?” Ma was taken aback; she didn’t know what to say. Finally, she blurted out “Schmaltz!” (That means fat in Yiddish. She was serious about if you can’t bring me cookies, don’t bother showing up.) Eventually, she remarried. I’d do my step-father discredit if I claimed he was one of the crowd of younger men attending senior dances in search of a wealthy wife and a green card. Their relationship is a story unto itself. Suffice it to say she married a man 20 years her junior, stopped going to afternoon dances, and was very, very happy for two, maybe three of the fifteen years they spent together. Toward the end of that period, she fell and hurt her back. I took her to the doctor, a new and overworked gerontologist. By the time she got in to see him, she’d been sitting in agony for hours and he had worked two hours past his lunchtime. Neither were happy at the start of their chat. However, he was young and handsome so she perked up a bit. He was seated, staring down at the notes he was making on her medical record when he asked her to sit on the examination table. (Those were the days when doctors stared at paper instead of computer screens.) As she was climbing out of her wheelchair and onto the table, he came to the part part of his list that dealt with sexual activity. He muttered “Sexual activity?” She replied, “Not since I hurt my back.” It took a minute for her words to sink in. “Wait. What? Are you saying you’re sexually active?” “Well, not recently, because, you know, my back.” The doctor stared at me in disbelief and asked, “Is she serious?” I just grinned and nodded. Suddenly, he was more interested in looking at Ma than at his papers. “So you’re a party girl,” he said to her. That’s all it took. He was her doctor for the rest of her life. Before I wind up this story, you should know a little about how my mother made my children giggle. My son lights every time he recalls escaping from his healthy-foods family and sitting on a plastic mat in front of Grandma’s TV while she plied him with ham-and-cheese on kaiser buns and real Coke out of the can. She knew how to keep him happy and quiet. Years later, he repaid the kindness by coming with me every afternoon after work and taking her on wheelchair rides round the nursing home she was in after she broke her back. I saw them pass another chair-bound resident who asked Ma if she had any mayonnaise. Without skipping a beat, Ma pretended to screw the lid on an invisible jar and then handed it to the other lady who accepted it gladly. Once they got around the corner, Ma and my son burst into gales of laughter. I can still see her face. She looked exactly like the happy mask decoration you see at masquerades, missing teeth and all. My daughter was maybe still in high school when we gathered for a family dinner at some local restaurant. She was sitting next to Ma who was congratulating her on her upcoming nuptials. This was news to my daughter. “Oh yes,” said Ma. “You’re going to get married this year.” “Really?” “Yes. He’s a very nice boy. You know him.” Then Ma said “Hold out your hand,” which my daughter obediently did. Ma reached into her own mouth, jiggled a tooth a bit, and then placed the detached thing in my daughter’s palm, bloody roots and all. My daughter blanched, held out her trembling hand to me across the table, totally creeped out, going, “Aaagghhh…” I picked up the tooth with a paper napkin, wrapped it up and yelled “Who wants to see the tooth fairy tonight?” No takers. Back to the step-father. He was Filipino, very attractive, a virile fifty years old when he married my 70-year old mother. He was, indeed, the love of her life, and why not? How many 70-year old women get the chance to start over with a tall, dark, and younger Adonis? Now fast forward to my own 70th year. I’d joined a ballroom dance studio and my teacher was a very handsome Filipino man only 40 years my junior. During one Rumba lesson, I got a flashback of my mother at 70 and started giggling at the parallels. He asked what was funny. I considered telling him her story but I figured it would frighten him so badly I’d never see him again so I muttered something inconsequential. I’m eternally grateful to that young man. He led me into the wonderful world of historic social dance reenactment and costuming by agreeing to do a series of dance history demos with me. I never told him about my mother, only that my step-father was also Filipino. Sometimes it’s best if you don’t tell the whole story.