Mexican Standoff

If I were asked to describe my mother I could use any number of flattering adjectives without hesitation. Kind, thoughtful, huge influence on who I’ve become, the sort of person any son would be proud to call his mother; you know, the stuff orphans dream of. Wonderful, fantastic, funny, the list goes on but then, at the very end, there’s the stubborn thing. It’s a trait I inherited myself and one I share with each and every one of my siblings. Push, and we push back, tell us we can’t and watch out because nobody tells us we can’t do something.

Take for example the time some contractor told my mother there was no way she could refinish the hardwood floors in our house without hiring a professional. This was back when I was 13 or so and my mother had her eye on the three largest rooms in our home, each with a different species of hardwood laying dormant beneath the ugliest carpet on earth. The next thing my brothers and I knew we were hauling carpet out the back door and pulling up tack strip. My mother became her own general contractor and when she hung up her hard hat a week or so later we had a living room, a dining room, and a family room with wall-to-wall hardwood.

I love my mother and in a normal week might talk to her once or twice and maybe more should something come up. Sometimes I call her and other times she’ll call me, but pretty much at least once a week we’ll talk. She doesn’t live close enough to see more than a couple times a year but still, we keep up nicely on the phone.

I haven’t spoken to my mother since Christmas; she hasn’t called me and I haven’t called her. It seems we have a Mexican standoff.