Happy Birthday Red!

After a long hiatus...I am back. Not only am I back with one post, I am back with two very different, simultaneous entries. I compare it to Bruce releasing Human Touch and Lucky Town on the same day in 1992. Enjoy.

So as some of you may know...I call my mother Red. I guess it's something I picked up from my stepfather David, and it just stuck. Well, today, January 12, 2010 is my mother's 60th Birthday. Bruce wrote a song for his mother called The Wish...so I figured the least I could do was write a blog post about my mom.

To know my mother is to know that she spends every minute of her days, every fiber of her being, doing things for others. She gave up a corporate career in the food service industry to work at The WindMill...partially because her father wanter her to...and partially because it would allow her to put her family first before her career. She takes off every Friday so she can cook Shabbat dinner for anyone and everyone who wants to show up and dinner usually includes two soups, two main dishes, three sides, and at least one dessert. Then on Saturday, she treks down the shore, fighting shore traffic during the summer...all so we can be together Friday night. She invites the masses for Rosh Hashanah and Passover, year in and year out...cooking everything from scratch. She makes dozens of holiday baskets...again...everything made from scratch for people that she works with, people David works with, people I work with, people she met 20 years ago, etc.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. My mother will drop anything, any time for anyone she cares about. She flies to Florida at a moment's notice to take care of my grandparents, she used to take my car to be serviced for me because it was on her way to work, she goes to doctor appointments with my sister, and she happily took my daughter to gymnastics recently. She lets people live in her house...really. She will do anything.

She is the first one on the dance floor at any party, usually dragging or coaxing the rest of us with her. And when our family has had hard times, she is our rock.

My mother loves without limits, strings or guilt. She got that from her grandmother, Mama. She told me a long time ago that different children need different things. My sisters and brother needed more of her time, but any time I need her...she somehow knows. She used to tell me a story about how when she was in college and had no money, somehow a letter would show up from Mama with some cash in it. How did she know? My mother doesn't send me money...but she is in tune with what all of her children need from her at any given time. It's amazing.

I could go on and on, but I will just say this last thing before I finish. I live my life every day hoping to make my mother proud. She tells me all the time that she is proud of me...and even at 35 with two kids of my own...it means the world to me.

So...I will leave you with a quote from The Wish...

"And if it's a funny old world, ma, where a little boy's wishes come true

Well I got a few left in my pocket and a special one just for you
It ain't no phone call on Sunday, flowers or a mother's day card
It ain't no house on a hill with a garden and a nice little yard
I got my hot rod down on Bond Street, I'm older but you'll know me in a glance
We'll find us a little rock 'n roll bar and baby we'll go out and dance"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RED!

JN