Grudgy, Wudgy was a Bear

So Mothers Day came and went with a surprising lack of Mother.

J. was baffled by the unavailability of his mother on the very day designed to honor her most. The day all manner of adolescent upheaval, and hurt feelings, and failures to communicate (and yes, disapproval of one’s atrocious voting record) all pale in comparison to the importance of the day. Most moms clear the calendar, keep the phone lines open, stay at home, remain available, unlock the door, and put the coffee on. If she knows you are coming, she bakes a cake.

So it is a little troubling that Endora vanished for such a long period of time with a fairly flimsy excuse. (No Meryl Streep, her acting job just a little transparent.) J. felt it safe to assume that she was celebrating with a less prickly segment of the family. One without any high expectations for accountability and decorum and manners and propriety.

Could be a coincidence. Could be more than that. Could be much more than that.

I had a hateful old aunt who died an old maid and was every inch the bitter old hag you would expect from someone who toiled away at a mundane clerical job at a utility company all her life. Who spent the evenings of the prime of her life caring for her mother. Whose health and good looks went the way of the dodo way ahead of the curve. And who never had a partner to share life’s joys and sorrows with, even as the lives of people around her evolved or came to an end, one by one, year after year. Aunty had brothers and sisters and cousins and in-laws, but as their lives all took flight and hers did not, she became increasingly more cantankerous of nature and malignant of disposition. Yet we continued to invite her to dinner, include her at birthdays, bring presents at Christmas. And then one day, she began to close herself off. Lock her doors, unplug the phone, ignore the doorbell, vanish for days at a time to take casino bus trips and generally secede from the union.

Funny thing though. She would often complain that no one called. No one visited. She could be “dead in this house for three days and no one would know it.” But we would call. We would visit. We would extend invitations and worry how she was getting about in the snow. She just would not make herself available to receive those acts of love and courtesy.

So now…is Endora taking a page from Aunty’s book and building the same case? So she can tell all the blue hairs in the Widow’s Club how her wicked son and his hateful lady friend didn’t even have the respect and consideration to pay her a visit on Mothers Day? So she can lament and bemoan how he’s changed and how he was never so callous until I came along? Nothing like this ever happened before he took up with that uppity beyotch!

And to think my voting record was all I had to worry about.