A few months ago, Oliver, my eldest son, walks into my bedroom, “I really like what you’ve done with the room. Very hospice chic.” Jimmy Kimmel might be blasting on my TV at midnight, and he will come in and say, “So, this is what it’s like at the end?” His humor and teasing are endlessly entertaining to me. I laugh until I cry at these bits poking fun of his mother – me. The newest bit is that he tells me I’m over- painting my eyebrows. “They’re too high on your forehead, you look like a scared cartoon character.”
Just tonight, while he playfully beat me up with his hilarious take on me, he thought he had me. “Wait” he asked. “How old am I?” In the middle of both laughter and tears, I answer Oliver. “I know how old you are.” The truth is, I really did have to think for a second. And he knows that. “You’re thirty-three, right?” I realize that adding the right will give him more fuel to make fun of me but maybe I feed him material sometimes.
There is one thing I might not have revealed to my son and that is the truth of his birth experience. But, one day while he was growing up, his father let the story slip. Oliver has never once made fun of it. In a way, it’s a relief. I hate secrets. But I would keep a secret if it kept someone safe. Actually, my friends know that I will go to the grave with their secrets if they ask me to. I just hate to be asked. (more…)
