My Mother is Harmless

I answered it immediately, because only my mother calls me on my home phone. She didn't even say, "Hello". Her first words were, "I'm benign."

A wave of relief washed over me.

My mama has an enlarged thyroid and went in for a biopsy a couple of weeks ago. I have been visibly and audibly worried. I am just that type of person. In my heart I knew she was "benign".

When I heard her say the words, "I am benign", my first thoughts were, "yeah, you're mostly harmless", but my mouth just said, "thank God". I know that, with my mother, there would not have been a better time to make a joke. She seemed tired and lethargic for the two weeks of waiting. I knew she wasn't herself, but when I got that phone call, I knew she had been worried. I knew it because of the obvious relief in her voice and her demeanor.

I had wondered, in those weeks, how I could be a mother without my mother.

I still call her with every sniffle or sneeze my daughter has. Who would I call without her? The pediatrician..... pffffft! He makes me feel like an idiot. Mom makes me feel like a caring mother who is smart enough to call her mother.

My mother is the stereotypical "perfect mother". She never smoked. She never drank. She left me unarmed with no rejoinders when she busted me with a joint hidden in a bird's nest in my room. I thought a bird's nest would make a great hiding place.... Wrong! Boy, she pissed me off that day...

Anyway, I digress. My mother is "benign". I thank God and thank her for her health... and not for purely selfish reasons. My mother has so much more laughing to do.