More "Ma"

I would come home from work and Ma would make me coffee in an old mug. The best I can say about her coffee or her cooking was that it was hot and had the right color(most of the time). I enjoyed her comforting presence and her one dimensional view of life. Life was simple to he and black and white. If you were family you were loved, and there was no need to say the words. That would be redundant and a foolish waste of energy. Just as there was no reason to comment when the sun rose at dawn--only an idiot would make note of it or someone who wrote poetry(a fine example of splitting hairs). Sitting in our living room we had wonderful conversations about everything that was important in her world like being a Catholic. She knew I was not a Catholic and that was a great concern. To her I was Jewish because I wore a hat and I was not Catholic. In Old World Poland around the turn of the century there were Jews and Catholics. Therefore, if I was not a Catholic, I was a Jew. One day we had this conversation about God. I said nobody knows what God looks like. She looked at me like I was the town dunce(still loved though because I was her grandson). She sadly shook her head and opened her Polish Bible and found the page that showed a beautiful picture of God. He must have gone to the barber for that painting because His long white hair had every strand in place. I thought He had aged well, probably the result of clean living. Anyway, case closed, on to the next theological connumdrum Ma had educated once more. I like to think that when she went to heaven , a merciful God appeared to her just as He looked in her bible so she would not have any trouble recognizing Him. They would have long talks about what to do about her grandson.