An open letter to my mom

Dear Mom,

You know I love you right? I enjoy your weekly Grammy night, along with the mirth and merriment you bring to the dinner table, even though you’re almost always late.

But please, please, PLEASE! stop bringing stuff over every time you visit.

I know you think it’s sweet, and part of a grammy’s job, but your just one little thing here and there have accumulated over the last half decade. Grains of sand scattered over the last five years have turned into a beach.

You’ve been coming over for dinner once per week for five years now. For each of those years I’ve consistently asked begged you to please stop bringing stuff over.

Let’s do some simple math!

52 weeks in a year times five years is 260 weeks. Times two children, that’s 520 tchotchkes. And sure, there have been a few random weeks when we either didn’t have Grammy Night or you showed up empty handed, but you and I both know you love to make up for these occasional deficits with a tsunami of surplus the following week. And always with certain glee gleaming in your eyes.

PLEASE STOP!

Your grandchildren do not need any more things. If you choose to spoil them, great, please do it with the gift of your time. Show up when you say you’re going to and spend time playing with them, preferably on their level and speaking their language. It is difficult for me to see you constantly grooming them to expect some sort of prize every time you knock on the door.

I’ll never forget the shocked, and rather hurt, expression on your face the first time you showed up empty handed and Mia said, “Grammy, what do you have for me today?”

You told her that was spoiled. You were right. But gee, Ma, whad’ya expect? Pavlov’s dog got slobber on the rug after the ding of a bell for a reason. It is precisely what I was cautioning since she was still bald.

I do not want our children to equate your visits with gifts.

Though I’d rather not bore anyone with a long list of the many things that make my eyes bleed every time I pass them, I do believe an example might be in order, as I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m an ungrateful son who doesn’t appreciate the kindly gifts his generous mother brings each week.

I’d like to highlight two examples of “other people’s garbage” which are now part of my decor.

The Dora the Explorer Play Set

You were 45 minutes late the day you knocked on the door with this one! Most of your wonderful gifts come directly from the thrift store, but this one actually came from the side of the road! What’s that?!? you thought, flying by at 40 miles an hour. After making a U-turn to investigate the plastic play set that had been surrendered to the following day’s garbage pickup, you loaded the play set (roughly the size of Rhode Island) into your car and brought it to our house.

This thing is a big behemoth of molded loathing, played with until the edges were sharp and then abandoned. Mia and Max played with it for maybe twenty minutes on two different days. Yet it is a Grammy present which I am therefore not permitted to throw away.

Multiply this times 520.

The Donkey

I would rather have 42,741 Dora the Explorer Play Sets than this one donkey. And though I rarely use the word hate, I HATE this thing with a volcanic intensity.

I almost had a heart attack the day you brought this over. Grinning like a Cheshire, immeasurably pleased with yourself, this heinous Tijuana roadside eyesore has been the daily evil eclipsing my eyesight. It has migrated from room to room, carrying it’s diabolical filthiness everywhere it goes. Though you have been promising to bring the tail over for three years now, I do not want it…

Oh, I didn’t mention that? Yeah, in addition to the matted fur, and undisclosed history, this life-sized donkey (YES – LIFE SIZED!) has a gaping rusty hole where it’s tail should be.

I couldn’t make that up.

We are doing our best to teach our children that less is more, trying to teach them that time is more important than material goods.

Yet every visit undermines our teaching.

I do understand that you’re just trying to be “Grammy.” I get and accept that, but by making every visit special in this way, none of them truly are.

I know it feels good for you to buy things. Finding something at a thrift store and adding it to your endless inventory of priceless finds feeds something inside you. But it makes something inside me hungry.

Perhaps if I piled all the bunkum together in a single mountain you might listen, but I decided to write this letter instead. Hopefully, reading it at your favorite site will help to make my dream come true!

Thanks, Ma. I love ya!

P.S. Of course I would never publish this without showing it to my mom first. Not only has she read it, I’ll be posting her reply tomorrow.

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