Mum

Saturday is my mum's birthday. She will be (mumble mumble) years old. Cool, eh?

I've wanted to write a post about my mother for a long time, but there are trickinesses involved. For one thing, she blogs too, and I have to be careful not to blurt out all the things that I think are interesting about her that she might not actually want to have "out there," as it were. I need to make sure I'm painting a picture of her that she, herself, would want painted. So with that in mind, here's just a few glimpses about her. If you get a chance to meet her though, you really should. She's truly nifty.

• To her children, she has been, at one time or another, Mommy, Mom, Mum, Ma, MoTHER, Maternal Unit, Rev. Ma, and The Reverend Doctor Mother Father.
  
• She came second in the Ontario Provincial Spelling Bee when she was 13 years old.
  
• She's an Anglican priest in Prairie City, the result of a late vocation after a long career teaching university English.
• She likes Steven Seagal movies... the more explosions, the better.
  
• She can't listen to a Bach chorale without tearing up.
  
• Games of Trivial Pursuit against my mum go one of two ways... if she's feeling cooperative and patient, the game can go on for quite some time. If she's tired and wants to go to bed, the game will be over in about 10 minutes. She's good.
• Her hair is greying, and beautiful.
  
• When we were in Florence, and we found the tomb of Beatrice Portinari, Dante's muse, we sat on the floor of the church and she told me their story with tears flowing down her cheeks.
  
• One of her favourite expressions is CHRONE POWER!
  
• She loves her children more than anything else, and will inflict serious and immediate pummeling on anybody who comes close to causing us distress.
• She is smart, and funny, and very brave.
  

Happy Birthday Ma!