Ave Verum Corpus

It's my mother's birthday. Or it would be. Actually, I guess it is. After all, January 27 is Mozart's birthday, and he's been dead for a lot longer than Moky has.

What to say, what to say? I kind of want to mark the day in somehow, and she has been in the back of my head all day.

In some strange detour on the web earlier, I found a plastic birdhouse that repels dogs - if the dog barks, the birdhouse makes a noise that shuts up the dog. It would have been a perfect gift, a yard ornament to combat the neighbor's barker that drove her bananas - especially because she'd never have spent $69 on a plastic birdhouse of dubious merit.

I thought about the last time I saw her - I kissed her cheek before the undertaker zipped her up. And then they bumped the removal trolley down the front steps and hoisted her into the waiting Cadillac hearse. At that point, my sister turned to me and said "she'd have hated that". "Yeah", I added, "it's a good thing it's so early that none of the neighbors are up."

She was easy to buy presents for - she was abstemious and frugal - so I could get her a stellar piece of cheese or some fancy chocolates or a soft and lovely sweater or the fleece hat she's wearing in the photo to the left or a brand-spanking-new hard cover book just out - and she would be pleased and tickled and happy to eat the cheese, washed down with some boxed wine. But a ride in a limo would have appalled her, just as she had no interest in manicures and massages - too indulgent, too ostentatious.

She would have been 74 today, and I wonder what she might have liked, this time, this year.

Happy birthday, Moky. Requiscat in Pace. And I hope Mozart is there singing the Ave Verum Corpus with you.



(Note: photo taken by my sister on my mother's 73rd birthday.)