By the Book

"Life does not come with a manual; it comes with a mother."

There was this time in my life, back in the Eighties, when I was having trouble with this woman I was dating.

I came home after spending a rather disappointing afternoon with her, feeling depressed and extremely bummed out.

All I wanted to do was go crash in my room and hide from the rest of humanity.

My mother, however, have different plans.

As soon as I walked into the house and mumbled a vague “Hello” to my parents, my mother’s emotional alarm system went into hyperdrive.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” I lied and kept walking, hoping that was the end of it.

I could not have been more wrong. Upon hearing my pathetic response, my mother rose from her seat on the living room couch and began following me like a bloodhound pursing an escaped convict.

“Don’t tell me that,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said, sticking to my empty guns. “Everything’s okay.”

But my mother would not be dissuaded. She had gotten the scent of my distress and now no force on earth could shake her off.

Finally, I had to give in.

“Well, I’m having some trouble with this girl…”

“I knew it!” my mother declared, like a homicide cop getting a suspect’s confession. “Robert, I can read you like a book!”

And indeed, she could. My mother was a human lie detector when it came to our wellbeing. She just knew when something was up and she was determined to find out what it was.

It started when I was a child and I’d tried to tell her some foolish fib. Ever on the alert, she would peer into my eyes and give me a spiritual X-ray.

“I see the ‘L’ on your forehead!”

Yes, my mother actually claimed she should the letter “L”—short for “liar”—emblazoned on my cranium. And I would promptly cave.

And what’s really annoying is that this ridiculous tactic continued to work even after I realized I was being scammed. There was something about her approach that made me want to confess.

Pants on Fire

In fact, she actually tried to pull it on my when I was in 30s--legally able to drive, drink, and serve in the armed forces--but still incapable of resisting my mother’s forehead fake.

Today is Mother’s Day, so naturally I’m thinking of my mother, and appreciating that what I thought was nagging at the time, was actually the deepest, truest form of love imaginable.

I miss her ability to see right through me and spot the incriminating evidence on my forehead.

Luckily, her sister—my auntie—is still with us and she shares my mom’s ability to wrest the truth out of me when I’m least inclined to share it. And, to her credit, she doesn’t even have to be in the same room.

I call my auntie every day and when there’s something troubling me, it doesn’t stay secret for very long.

“What’s wrong?” she asked me, one day, two seconds into the call.

“Nothing…”

“I can hear it in your voice!”

Damn it, they got me again. Can she hear the "L" in my voice?

“You and Mom always know when I’m upset!”

“It isn’t that hard,” my auntie said.

Well, I’m sure glad I never chose a life of crime because otherwise I’d be blogging from a cell in Sing-Sing.

Today, so many mothers and their children will find it impossible to see each other in the real world due to the coronavirus pandemic.

There’s Zoom, and FaceTime, and even the phone to bring people together in some fashion, of course.

And while the technology falls short of the real thing, those of you who still have your mothers should be grateful that you can connect with them in any way possible.

And a word of advice: When you do speak with your mom today, don’t try holding back anything.

Because if she’s anything like my mother, she can read you like a book.