Mama: You've had enough big life events in the last year. Let's not get married this year.
Me: Married? But I'm not even.....
Mama: Oh, I know, I know. But these things happen.
Me: Even if I were to fall in love and decide to marry someone, I wouldn't want to be engaged this year.
Mama: But you always said you wanted a Christmas wedding....
Me: Good grief, Mama, I've been unmarried for twenty-nine years already; I think I could manage to wait until the next Christmas.
Mama: But there might be a war.
Me: A war? So, you want me to move up the date of my hypothetical wedding because of a hypothetical war?
Mama [nodding]: He might be a spy. [pause] You know, I had a friend in college who had to get married in a hurry because her husband was going to jail. [pause] Don't marry someone who's going to jail.
Me: I won't. Unless it's for defending civil rights, or something like that.
Mama: Right. Don't marry someone going to jail unless he's going for a just cause.
Me: Okay, Mama. I promise.
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| (From the State Library of Queensland. No known copyright restrictions) |
This conversation captures your Mom (and you)--I could hear her saying the words as I read it.
ReplyDeleteI'll call that felon I'd invited to dinner tonight and tell him not to come. Darn the luck. ;)
ReplyDeleteI love this! Your mama always makes me smile!
ReplyDeleteOh ... this made me smile. I have these sorts of conversation with my mother too! :)
ReplyDeleteHow sweet that you're 29 and your mother matter-of-factly said, "But these things happen", about you getting married at Christmas! I think it's hard for mothers (grandmothers, aunts, etc.) to keep believing that sometimes ... as the years pass and that thing DOESN'T happen. "These things happen" is so bright and BELIEVING!
My mother is pretty stubborn (in the best possible way) when it comes to believing.
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