I'm becoming my mom.

Oh my God.  I'm becoming my mom.

My mother used to come into our rooms each night to check that we were still breathing.  She did this our entire childhood, and by "childhood" I mean "the period of time in which we were her children." One time, I was home from COLLEGE, and I heard a rustling in my room at 2:00 am. I naturally assumed that it was an intruder coming to ravage me, and prepared to attack him with a rack of decorative porcelain figurines that hung near my bed. (These were a relic of my youth, a time in which collecting porcelin figurines seemed like a good investment, and after many trips to THE DOLLAR TREE with my indulgent grandmother, I was now the curator of an impressive collection.  It would be a shame to break them all, but it was undoubtedly preferable to being ravaged.)  I reached out into the darkness to grab the rack.  At the same time, a hand groped in the darkness towards my face....

....and stuck its finger underneath  my nose.  A familiar finger.  My mother's finger.  "What the hell are you doing?" I asked her-- still clutching the porcelain figurine rack.  "Oh, you know, just checking that you are still breathing," she said casually, as if this were a completely normal behavior.  Obviously, without her constant vigilance, her healthy 20 year old daughter with no known diseases or illnesses would perish in the night.

We used to tease my mother about this all the time. "Wait until you have children," she would tell us, "then you'll see."  "Whatever." We replied, like the insolent little assholes that we were.

My mother also used to confuse our names, especially when yelling at us.  "Dammit Kelly! I mean Tori! I mean Brandi--Katie-- whoever you are!" She would yell. We would laugh at this especially because Brandi was the dog.  Silly Mommy! Why was it so hard to tell us apart from the DOG?  Surely we would never be so foolish as to make that mistake.

Fast forward 20 years.  Now I have a daughter, and what do I do? "Millie sit down!" I tell her, "Stop licking the baby!"  Then I add, "Cricket, do you want to read a book with Mommy?" Oh my God. I'm becoming my mom.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

And I think owe her an apology.

Mom,

I am so sorry that I teased you about confusing my name with the dog.  You were right, it was harder than it looked, and I was being kind of a bitch.  Also, thanks for checking on me so many times to make sure I was still alive.  Do you think Millie's still alive?  Hang on, I'd better go check on her....

Ok. I'm back.  Anyway, please accept my collection of decorative porcelain figurines as a token of my appreciation.  I see now that I was being an ungrateful little twat. 

With love,
Katie


I'm so lucky that my mom is still with us, but I know it wont always be that way.  Now that I'm a mother too, I'm 100% certain about what will happen to my mom when she goes. She will DEFINITELY turn into a ghost, that way she can haunt me and my sisters. She will sneak into our bedrooms and night and wail sage advice as us in a ghostly voice such as, "don't sleep in your bathing suit, it will give you crotch rot!" Then, as we lay dreaming, an eldritch hand will reach out from beyond the pale towards our faces.... and she'll check that we're still breathing.