We are all, by measure of degrees, recovering from something. Yet there are those whose unfortunate set of circumstances requires them to recover from their experiences. This is about a mother's lifelong struggle to recover from her experiences with her son …
I met Mo while in elementary school after having moved the umpteenth time from one school to another. I counted at least 7 different schools in 5 years. Mo, was a sickly person with a massively protruding stomach that incessantly created havoc on his back even when he was sitting still. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I discovered his real name was not Mo but Tommy Belichine.
The student population at our school, in a cruel adolescent ritual, baptized him Mo. One day at class the professor had queried about who had painted the Mona Lisa. With great timing and flair of Shakespearian iambic pentameter, Mo answered “Leonardo Mo Vinci” eliciting raucous laughter from class. That pet name stuck with him all his life and was later adopted by his own mother to point out the undeniable backfire of life that is her own son. Mo is the abbreviation of the word moment in British colloquialism. Every time she sees him, she is reminded of that moment in time when he came out of her womb and brought hell to her life.
I met her one gloom and rainy day while I was waiting at a bus stop. She was needling what appeared to be an over-sized sweater for what I assumed to be a little kid – portly though it appeared to me. Meticulous and patient, she created a beautiful pattern of greens and blues that looked like the colors of the ocean. “I like dressing him up in such calming colors because whenever I see him my nerves get jangled, like someone put my innards in a blender”. “The colors of nature help a little bit” “Who is it that you are referring to”, I queried. “It’s my son, my one and only son. If you end up with a son like this, you’d better expect your life to get cut short”. Just as she said that, a group of about half a dozen kids walked past us and recognized her. “Look!, one of the kids yelled to the others. “Isn’t that the kid’s Mom?” Yeah, another one yelled. “Hey old lady, where did you get your kid?” “Listen, do yourself a favor, wherever you found him, put him the hell back!” Hey, I shot back. Take it easy on the lady. What did the kid do? “We were in the middle of a soccer game and all of a sudden he just took the ball and left – only because nobody wanted to pass the ball to him any more. Every time someone tries to pass the ball to him, things get messed up. He’s too slow and can’t catch up to the ball. So the ball ends up with the other team. He messes up the entire game for everyone!
(TO BE CONTINUED)
