84 and Still Kind of Hearing (Who Shot KFC?)

Bless her soul, my mother is the Irish version of the bizarro Godmother of 13 goofs.  She’s the kindest, sweetest and deafest 84 year old on the planet. Obviously, I’m a bit biased regarding this subject of our mom, commonly and affectionally referred to as Helen Keller.

We always consider our mothers and fathers as the best on their birthdays.  This will be short and cute.  Today is my Mother’s 84th birthday.  I’m celebrating it 25o miles away by merely calling her to tell her how much I love her.  She is  still capable of smacking me on the behind, but my hearing is just a touch better than hers.

My mother, Margaret, doesn’t always turn up her hearing aids, or perhaps, she’s just messing with us when we call her, thus keeping the conversations short.  We shared a nice conversation this morning, and as her kind soul will dismiss her birthday, she wished to know how my wife and life was doing.  I responded, “Britt’s having a rough time with one of our animals getting old and perhaps passing on.”  My mother responded, “Britt’s moving out?”

“No, mom, don’t worry about anything.  We’re very happy and this is the first girl who doesn’t want to leave me…..let’s talk about something else you can’t hear.  I’ll sing Happy Birthday to you.”  (That’s a great way to disguise a terrible singing voice.. Brilliant.)  She didn’t hear it, but she loved it anyway, just like she unconditionally loves all of her children, grandchildren and Great grandchildren.  This last quick paragraph is just too fabulous to be left behind.

Patrice, one of my thousands of fabulous nieces, purchased Kentucky Fried Chicken, also known as KFC, for my mother today.  According to Patrice, it was just as greasy as it used to be……even with the new name.  Mom, bless her creative soul, said, “Don’t worry, I’ve never liked that JFK Chicken anyway.”  Gosh, I love her.

Happy Birthday, Mom.