Mark Patinkin’s mom celebrates 73rd Mother’s Day as center of family – The Providence Journal

Not long ago, my mother turned 94, but theres a more impressive milestone.

Its her 73rd Mothers Day.

Thats a lot of years being the mom of five sons. I still say five although she lost her eldest, because once you have them, you always do.

God knows how she survived us this long. When I tell people Im one of five boys, the response is the same.

Your poor mother.

It's really six boys, because our old man was a handful, too. At dinner, if you asked him to pass a roll, hed toss it across the table to teach us to catch.

My mom still says, I used to be a nice girl before I came into this family.

But I can attest that in her wheelchair in assisted living, she remains quite the lady.

Despite us.

Including the many times my brother Douglas melted Jell-O in his mouth during meals and gargled it for attention.

When I was 13, we figured out that my eldest brother was born seven months after our parents wedding. Being a brat, I asked my mom if she was a virgin when she was married.

I never had anything to do with any man besides your father, she said.

At which point I repeated the question.

What am I going to do with you?" she said.

What she really wanted was a daughter, and she kept trying after each miss, which is how she ended up with five sons. That led to the kind of life where, on her birthday, we'd give her a bag of Army soldiers, then ask if we could borrow them.

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But she didnt seem to mind. To her, it was always about her sons. And being a mom. At the beach, shed spend the whole time on the sand counting, One, two, three, four, five, and repeat.

If you asked me the most important thing she did, Id say this: After mornings of doing the things boys do outside, wed come in, and lunch was always ready, and, most important, she was there.

And there making dinner, too, and though she was no threat to Julia Child, she did it ably, except for the salmon loaf incident of 1966. The less said about that the better.

On the other hand, shell live in immortality for her signature dish, called cheese puffs, arduous to make, but she did it perfectly melted leopard-spotted Cheddar on toasted bread squares. When she served it, even in recent years to her 16 grandkids, it was like tossing food to seagulls, with drive-by thefts off plates.

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She was raised a girly-girl but stepped up to things like family camping trips. As we headed out to explore and fish, she stayed on duty at the tent to keep everyone going. During the long drives home, she tried to lead us in a catchy Aussie ballad called Waltzing Matilda. Being brats, we rarely joined in, and if any child is reading this, I suggest that when your own mother tries the same, sing, because if you dont, once you approach Social Security age you will feel guilty about it, as I now do.

We brothers saw her as a mild-mannered contrast to our roughhousing selves, but then came a day at the weekend farm my dad had bought for the family. A 6-six-foot snake crawled from a storage room into the kitchen while she was there alone.

We allegedly bold boys would have gotten the heck out of Dodge, but mindful that her youngest was a baby, and the snake heading God knows where, Mom got a garden hoe and clamped onto its neck while it thrashed, later holding up her kill for a famous family photo. Our dad often said that mama cows may seem timid, but get between one and its calf and it will be fiercer than a bull. Indeed.

Later, during our dating years, when we acted like barbarians, shed say, No girl will ever want you.

But all bets were off if girls werent nice to us.

That rotten Karen hurt my Douglas, didn't she? my mom once asked. I assured her Douglas would survive, but I have no doubt Mom, still today, remains angry at that rotten Karen.

And no one was more present to me during my divorce. Thats when, despite her European Jewish roots, I began to wonder if my mom was part Sicilian.

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Admittedly, she can at times be too honest.

Recently, after taking up guitar, I played for her in her assisted living apartment, assuming she would gush, as she always did when I showed her my grammar school artwork. Not exactly.

Mark, she said from her wheelchair, youll get better.

I cannot deny that at 94, my mother is at a challenging life stage. But all who have such a matriarch would doubtless attest that still, despite infirmity, they do a powerful thing.

They remain the center that families gather around.

Thats what Im thinking about on her 73rd Mothers Day the same thing I thought when we came in from a morning of play as kids.

Mom is there.

mpatinki@providencejournal.com

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Mark Patinkin's mom celebrates 73rd Mother's Day as center of family - The Providence Journal