Golden Memories of Mom

 I ran a few errands in town recently, and thought I’d stop by mom and dad’s house to visit for a minute. I got there and  mom got a sheet out to put over the chair for me to sit on…they have NUMEROUS cats…loving, slobbering, fur dispensing  cats…cats who, despite your obvious dislike of their fur, are intent on covering you with exactly the same amount of cat hair that they currently wear. So, we’re talking about the usual…their cats, their health, my siblings, work, Clint, Trevor, and Tara, the chickens….that’s when my mother suddenly blurted out “Lichea..when I die…I want you to have the mortician pull out my back teeth. Or, I suppose you could do it… You’ve got pliers…anyhoo…they are gold  and I want you to have it melted down and make yourself a nice ring or necklace.” While I’m processing this, trying to remain stonefaced, she goes on “I won’t need them and there’s no sense letting all that gold go to waste.” My dad is horrified by this conversation and looks at me and says. “Lichea! Don’t do that to your mother! That’s terrible. Pulling your mother’s teeth to make a necklace.” That’s when my mom pipes up and says “

Bobby Lane

! They’re MY teeth and I’ll have them pulled and melted down if I want to. Lichea, you do that for me.

Bobby Lane

! It’s GOLD. Do you HEAR ME?? GOLD. Gold is worth a LOT of money right now. ” I’m saying nothing, dumbfounded by the turn of events. Dad says “I can’t believe you’d do that, Lichea. That’s awful. That’s sick. That’s creepy. ” Meanwhile, mom is silently mouthing to me “don’t listen to him. Do what I say. He won’t know the difference. He won’t even remember this conversation. Pull my gold teeth.” Dad is still muttering at me and mom, telling us how morbid we are. Where he gets this “we” business, I have no idea. I’m tempted to use my favorite joke when I’m in the middle of two people fighting through me “15 love. Your serve.”    Meanwhile, I’m tempted to ask mom if she wants me to leave her teeth IN the gold…I pictured someone coming up and being like “Wow! That’s interesting…is that an opal?” I’d pause for a minute and say “no…it’s a pearl…..y white! Molar! It was my mom’s! She left it to me. She tried to give me her gallstones to make a bracelet , but I felt that was in bad taste…” I didn’t say that, although it was tempting..…what I did do was look her solemnly in the eye and say “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Get it? BRIDGE?” She did get it, and we guffawed and daddy finally trailed off and we got back onto the subject of my chickens, church and the idiot man down the road that hangs around Wal-mart and tries to pick up women, myself included. We laughed at his cheesy pick up lines and what I said to him the last time he approached me. I don’t remember what it was EXACTLY  that I said, but I know there was an overtly implied threat of physical harm involving the bottle of shampoo I had in my hand at the time. I was joking that after I hit him with the shampoo, I’d follow up with the conditioner because you should ALWAYS condition right after you shampoo.  Daddy brought up about my accident in the chicken houses earlier that week…a door must have gotten knocked off its hinges and I pulled it with all my might and BAM!! right in the side of the head, knocking myself unconscious. I awoke lying on the ground, gagging and heaving, so CAT scans and Dr. visits..I  was pronounced concussed and sent home to rest for a few days…Daddy said “Lichea…you really need to carry a gun out there to protect yourself.” I said “Daddy..I don’t know how much good a gun is going to do against a door.” He looked at me solemnly and said, “Well, next time it might be a man that knocks you in the head.” I tried to picture me yanking a man off his hinges so he could hit me on the head. I found his logic hard to argue with and told him I’d look into purchasing a handgun to wear on my hip. He found that to be a grand idea… After that, I got up to go and said goodbye with the thought of my toothless, goldless mother.She reminded me again before she left to be SURE and pull her teeth and if it bothered me, have the mortician do it for HEAVEN’S sake, it’s GOLD and therefore WORTH SOMETHING and what a WASTE it would be to bury her with GOLD in her head. That’s how she said “Goodbye!” that evening.   Then when I got home, I told Clint what my mom said to me about her gold teeth and we laughed and laughed…then, that night when I laid down to go to sleep, I thought about her wish…I would NEVER do that, take the gold from her mouth to make jewelry..NEVER…the thought of it so wrong on so many levels…but what I did think about was that she wanted me to have something valuable…something beautiful, sparkling and golden…something just for me…and she did give me something. An unexpected funny story to tell my family and friends about my brash, irreverent mother, the stories she leaves me worth their weight in gold.