She Thinks

I do actually.  Both look and sound like my Mother.

OY.

When I was younger I was always mistaken for my mom on the phone.  Once in awhile that was fun (as in tricking sales people to thinking I was her and getting her appreciation for fending them off).   But as a teenager, when someone would call and ASSUME I was my mother, I would always make it sound like it was a HUGE imposition, and respond in a dull teenage drawl with “NO…it’s not Del, it’s just Cindy…I’ll go get her” and stomp off to get my mom (‘cause we weren’t allowed to shout to tell her there was someone on the phone).

But mostly I hated it when people told me I looked like my mom.  Don’t get me wrong.  She was the cutest mom of all the mom’s I knew, and looking like her was not such a bad roll of the dice (no offense to my dad…but we all know I did better on that one!).    I was just trying to figure out who I was, and what my look was going to be…and sometimes it felt like I was just a carbon copy of her…only 4 inches taller and many pounds heavier (she was a teeny little thing, damn her).

As I’ve gotten older however, I’ve realized I look more and more like her every day, and it doesn’t much bother me anymore.

In fact, I kinda like it.

I have short blonde hair like she did (we never did find out her “true” color…but we’re never gonna find out mine either, so what the hell).  And, a round face like she did.  And small, thin lips…and virtually no eyelids (like her), but somehow…it seems to be working better for me these days.

But mostly…I have the same hands.  I look down at my hands now, and see my mom’s.  I used to love her hands.  They were small and warm and loving.  And now I think I have them too.

(Luckily I haven’t inherited the arthritis that bent her fingers and restricted her ability to use them effectively, but I always thought they were beautiful nonetheless.)

The thing that used to irk the hell out of me, though, is when she ended up in my head…and her words ended up coming out my mouth.

What the hell was that all about?

I’d be in the middle of a conversation with someone and out of the blue would come one of my mother’s “isms.”

There were hundreds of them.

I remember once (when Ally was about 3 years old) I was trying to explain something to her and she kept asking “Why?” every time I gave her an answer (like EVERY 3 year old on the planet)…and without hesitation, out came the mother of all of my mother’s “isms” …”Because, there’s no bones in ice cream!”

OMG!  Where did that come from?  My mother used to say that to me and my brother ALL the time when she didn’t want to give us any more of an explanation.

Me:            Mom, can I go to Nancy’s to sleep over this weekend?

Mom:            No honey…not this weekend.

Me:            Why not?  I don’t have anything else planned.

Mom:            It’s just not a good weekend honey.

Me:            But why?

Mom:            Because there’s no bones in ice cream…that’s why!

END…OF…DISCUSSION.

I was so outraged that I had used this tedious, outrageous tactic on my own little girl that I stopped my conversation with Ally…picked up the phone, called my mother and shouted “GET OUT OF MY HEAD WOMAN!”

Needless to say she was both a bit shocked at my call, and a bit pleased that her w-is-do-m had rubbed off on me!

When Ally got older she researched the whole no bones in ice cream thing and found out that there’s gelatin (which is made out of bones or something) in ice cream, and blew the whole thing out of the water…and COULDN’T WAIT to tell my mom.

My favorite “Del-ism”, however, is one that’s now being used by hundreds, if not thousands, of people who came into our sphere of influence over the years.  It’s the “Tell the Pilot to Drive Carefully” ism.

I know.  Pilots don’t drive planes.

It was just her way of telling someone to have a safe flight.  But, somehow when she said it, it was more than that.  It was a safety net she threw over you to make sure absolutely nothing bad would happen to you on your trip.   And it always made me feel safer.

So I started to say it to absolutely everyone I knew who was going on an airplane.

As a family, we say it to each other (individually mind you) when we get on the plane.   It sounds like a little chorus of well-wishing as we make eye contact and softly utter the words Tell the Pilot to Drive Carefully simultaneously to each other.  (Brian always hated it but humored me by saying “TTPTDC” every time we flew).

I even used it at work within my company and it became a “thing” with my staff.  At first, I think they (the collective “they” over 23 years with the company) thought I was crazy.  But I gotta tell you, there wasn’t anyone who left on a business trip who didn’t make it into my office to get their own Tell the Pilot to Drive Carefully before venturing out to the airport.

And now, after all these years, it absolutely warms my heart to hear someone outside of my family (because my family members are just expected to say it), tell ME to Tell the Pilot To Drive Carefully when I’m leaving on a trip.

Yeah…I look and sound like my Mother, and there are still some times when I do a double take in the mirror or have to stop myself in the middle of a sentence, and recognize that the words I’m speaking could easily have come out of my mothers mouth (and probably did sometime during her life), but instead of wanting to change my look, or shout and get her out of my head…I find that I get this warm glow filling my heart instead.

In Loving Memory of Del Kram…I hope I look half as good as she did, and that she never leaves my head.