👳Meme: Being A Mother – magnifisent story
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, boy, here we go.
👳Meme: masha Allah. May Allah give us all the opportunity to honour our mothers.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And a bunch of other Islam stuff in a foreign language I don't understand, snipped out.
While my own mother is worthy of honour, I'll venture to suggest that certainly not all mothers are. There are people who still honour others without being muslim.
More Islam stuff clipped out.
👳Meme: BEING A MOTHER…
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Urgh. Everybody gather 'round to be told a story, tear-jerked, talked at, something that's supposed to make us change our attitudes or - something like that…
👳Meme: After 17 years of marriage, my wife wanted me to take another woman out to dinner and a movie.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Okay, at first knee-jerk, one could be forgiven for thinking "What the heck's going on here?" But "another woman" does not necessarily mean what we've been conditioned to think it means. Chain letter glurges have been known to pull this psychological bait&switch.
👳Meme: She said, ‘I love you, but I know this other woman loves you and would love to spend some time with you.’
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: To avoid getting emotionally yanked in one direction and back into another, we need to pause, and look at what's not there. Did this story say this other woman was a gf or mistress? No. Did it say it was a relative? No. Did the thought occur to the readers that this "other woman" was a possible home wrecker? Very likely. How about a relative right off the bat? Possibly, though not likely.
This chain letter is pretty much designed to get some sort of reaction to the "other woman" bit.
I therefore, lean the other way and suggest this "other woman" to be a relative, maybe an immediate family member, probably the man's grown daughter if they have one, or a sister or his mother. I think I'll go with mother, since "Being A Mother" is the title of this story. Yep, I'm pretty sure it is his mother.
👳Meme: The other woman that my wife wanted me to visit was my MOTHER, who has been alone for 20 years, but the demands of my work and my two boys had made it possible to visit her only occasionally. .
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Tada! See what I mean? *Gets gold star off shelf and puts it with rest of collection*
👳Meme: That night I called to invite her to go out for dinner and a movie.
‘What’s wrong, aren’t you well,’ she asked?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Huh? He's just asked her to dinner and a movie and she wonders if he's not feeling well? When you're not feeling well, you generally don't want to go out to dinner and a movie, and are even less likely to take the initiative.
👳Meme: My mother is the type of woman who suspects that a late night call or a surprise invitation is a sign of bad news.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Eh? I don't understand. I just don't - why?
👳Meme: ‘I thought it would be pleasant to spend some time with you,’ I responded. ‘Just the two of us.’
She thought about it for a moment, and then said, ‘I would like that very much..’
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Yawn* I hope the movie plot is better at least.
👳Meme: That Friday after work, as I drove over to pick her up I was a bit nervous. When I arrived at her house, I noticed that she, too, seemed to be nervous about our date. She waited in the door. She had curled her hair and was wearing the dress that she had worn to celebrate her last birthday on November 19th.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: What about this am I supposed to pay particular attention to? You already said she was worried about getting bad news. Why it's it so important what dress she wore when?
👳Meme: She smiled from a face that was as radiant as an angel’s. ‘I told my friends that I was going to go out with my son, and they were impressed,’ she said,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Okay, um, what, really, is there to say? I didn't know there was anything resembling normalcy in chain letter families.
👳Meme: as she got into the car. ‘They can’t wait to hear about our date’.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You're going to write out every little bit of conversation you had? Dude, who does that? Who even remembers every word, every syllable as you apparently have?
👳Meme: We went to a restaurant that, although not elegant, was very nice and cozy. My mother took my arm as if she were the First Lady.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Well, she was, that night… And if this was your custom, well, whatever.
👳Meme: After we sat down, I had to read the menu. Her eyes could only read large print. Half way through the entries, I lifted my eyes and saw Mom sitting there staring at me. A nostalgic smile was on her lips. ‘It was I who used to have to read the menu when you were small,’ she said. ‘Then it’s time that you relax and let me return the favor,’ I responded.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Sigh* Yeah I get it already. I sorta figured that was coming when you said you had to read the menu….
So when you're at the movie I suppose you'll go through the same thing at the concession stands, the popcorn, the candy, reading the movie credits etc…
👳Meme: During the dinner, we had an agreeable conversation- -nothing extraordinary but catching up on recent events of each other’s life. We talked so much that we missed the movie.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Okay, no movie. I'm wrong about that one, but you did give me a bit of a bum steer there. Anyway, so far so good, least painful glurge I've read thus far. That doesn't mean there isn't something really annoying coming up, though, because it isn't quite over yet.
👳Meme: As we arrived at her house later, she said,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Something really grateful, and maybe something sad as well.
👳Meme: ‘I’ll go out with you again, but only if you let me invite you.’ I agreed.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Huh? Okayees...
👳Meme: ‘How was your dinner date ?’ asked my wife when I got home.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Good and uneventful and pleasant, not unlike the outings I go on with my parents. I'm really surprised at how un-annoying this has been so far, other than not having much of a plot.
👳Meme: ‘Very nice. Much more so than I could have imagined,’ I answered.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Why? It's only how smoothly things should go when family gets together.
👳Meme: A few days later,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Uh-oh, is this where it's going to turn nasty?
👳Meme: my mother died of a massive heart attack. It happened so suddenly that I didn’t have a chance to do anything for her.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Aw, CRAP! *Facepalm* I figured something like this was bound to happen! Someone usually ends up dying in these "We should honor/respect (insert person-type)" chains, and what with this woman's being worried about bad things happening with invitations and all that, a bit of foreshadowing there.
So, now, wanna bet somehow she's going to invite him to her funeral, or to join her eventually in the afterlife with some sort of note they'll discover upon her death?
👳Meme: Some time later, I received an envelope with a copy of a restaurant receipt from the same place mother and I had dined.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oops, I got the premise right, but the location wrong. It was the restaurant. Okay, I stand corrected there. She wrote the invitation and such in advance. This reminds me of the chain letter that contains in whole or in part, James A. Kisner's poem :Roses For Rose" and the real life provision in Jack Benny's will that his widow get a rose a day for the rest of her life.
👳Meme: An attached note said: ‘I paid this bill in advance. I wasn’t sure that I could be there; but nevertheless, I paid for two plates – one for you and the other for your wife. You will never know what that night meant for me. I love you, son.’
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, come on! People do make reservations and then one person gets to go when someone else can't make it, but paying a restaurant bill in advance? No, you get the bill after you've finished eating. This could've been a gift card to cover an approximate amount that might make up two plates, but the bill itself wasn't paid in advance.
👳Meme: At that moment, I understood the importance of saying in time: ‘I LOVE YOU’
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Facepalm* As if you hadn't before so now you thought it was cool to make a chain letter telling us all what to say to whom, when, and why, and not to waste time. Urgh!
👳Meme: and to give our loved ones the time that they deserve. Nothing in life is more important than your family.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: When you have a good relationship with your family, sure, and when they're all receptive to other family members reaching out, sure, but it just isn't always that way. Every family is different, and there are people who just don't want to do the verbal group hug thing.
👳Meme: Give them the time they deserve, because these things cannot be put off till ‘some other time.’
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: If you're going to go on yet another tired old speal about how we mustn't put off a single "I love you!" for another second, maybe you should include everything else we shouldn't be putting off either… Like telling people that glurges are freaking annoying and that re-post/re-shares are nowhere near as valuable as your own personally written words!
Let's go over how many chain letters have already harped on this "Say I love you right now to everybody because you/they could die tomorrow!" thing.
👳Meme: Somebody said it takes about six weeks to get back to normal after you’ve had a baby…. somebody
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: So? It takes that long, longer to recover from other things too.
👳Meme: doesn’t know that once you’re a mother, ‘normal’ is history..
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Wrong. Normal is subjective, variable, different for everyone. Once you have a kid, you're a parent, so hopefully you are normal in the sense that you are a good parent and things are normal for your kids - they are healthy and happy. 'Nuff said.
👳Meme: Somebody said you learn how to be a mother by instinct … somebody never took a three-year-old shopping.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Rolling eyes* Nobody ever said parenting was easy.
👳Meme: Somebody said being a mother is boring ……
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Well then that somebody shouldn't, hopefully doesn't have kids. *Scowl*
👳Meme: somebody never rode in a car driven by a teenager with a driver’s permit.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Hah! I'm sure it would be pretty traumatic for the teenager too, having nervous wreck backseat-driving parents too.
👳Meme: Somebody said if you’re a’good’ mother, your child will ‘turn out good’….
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Whoever that somebody is, needs to put a sock in it, because that's a pile of garbage. *Scowl*
👳Meme: somebody thinks a child comes with directions and a guarantee.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Who is this somebody you keep referring to? Obviously somebody who has been living under a rock their entire life. I'm pretty sure nobody really believes kids come with manuals and guarantees like computers...
👳Meme: Somebody said you don’t need an education to be a mother….
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Hel-lo! Life experience *is* education! As for formal education, it doesn't matter how much of that you get if your attitude stinks, so go tell that to your rock-dwelling pal.
👳Meme: somebody never helped a fourth grader with his math.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Lucky for that fourth-grader, because that "somebody" would've been no help at all.
👳Meme: Somebody said you can’t love the second child as much as you love the first ….
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: That somebody ought get a good ol' slap upside the head! Love doesn't work that way.
👳Meme: somebody doesn’t have two children..
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Hopefully this somebody doesn't have *ANY* children!
👳Meme: Somebody said the hardest part of being a mother is labor and delivery…. .
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Rolling eyes* No, the hardest would be emotional things like watching your kid die, seeing them get killed (I'm not going into details here) and the next worst thing would be having your kid turn out to A. despise you or B. turn out to be a sadist. Actually you can't exactly have B without A. Anyway…
👳Meme: somebody never watched her ‘baby’ get on the bus for the first day of kindergarten …
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Holy crap, I really out-gunned you on this one didn't I? Watching your kid get on the bus is a picnic compared with going through labor pains, and even that's peachy compared with the summarized scenarios I put in the above. I was totally expecting you to put something really awful here.
👳Meme: or on a plane headed for military ‘boot camp.’
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yes, but you know what, that would be stressful all around.
👳Meme: Somebody said a mother can stop worrying after her child gets married….
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Sigh* Will you ever shut up? No, that's not true either. At least, not with my mother.
👳Meme: somebody doesn’t know that marriage adds a new son or daughter-in- law to a mother’s heartstrings.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Don't forget the grandkids…
👳Meme: Somebody said a mother’s job is done when her last child leaves home….
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Rolling eyes* Look, just because people move doesn't mean we all stop being who we are. A mother doesn't stop being a mother, a son doesn't stop being a son just because he's moved out.
👳Meme: somebody never had grandchildren.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Pssh* I already beat you to that punch too.
👳Meme: Somebody said your mother knows you love her, so you don’t need to tell her……
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Facepalm* Look, we've already driven off that bridge somewhere in the above. You don't need to say "I love you" all the time to prove it, and you especially won't prove love by sending this guck instead of actually communicating with your family and friends…
👳Meme: somebody isn’t a mother.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: There are lots of people who aren't mothers, me among them. I still know a lot more about it than your rock-headed pal.
👳Meme: With Love and Concern,
Ayesha Abdul-Haqq
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I don't know who you are, but spare the concern. I'm doing fine. My mother's doing better than she has in years. Thank God.
Over and out.
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