Although my mom died ten summers ago, I still want to call her and work crossword puzzles with her over the phone.  On the weekends, my mind reaches for my iPhone to call her. 

In the last years before Mom moved on to the afterlife, I’d sit in front of the computer screen at the computer cupboard and lookup clues to words that Mom was stuck on as she figured out her New York Times Daily Crossword Puzzle that ran in the Galveston Daily News. 

But it’s when I reach for a slice of bread, a knife, Peter Pan Peanut Butter and then the blueberry jelly, that I think about mama and her lunch.  As I pour myself a cup of coffee brewed in my red Keurig, I think about her drinking a cup of Maxwell House or Folger’s from the Mr. Coffee coffeemaker. 

I learned to giggle from my mother; and I think of all the gifts she gave me; giggling is the best.  I would rather giggle than be angry.  Working crossword puzzles with mom was often a chance to giggle at the double meanings of words, and to remember green hills in our ancestors’ Germany.

“Quit rough-housing; play nice.”  Mom would say that to my sister and I when we would “rough-house.”  As the oldest, I didn’t always recognize my strength.   

“Straighten your room.”  While my sisters and I were at school, Mom sometimes would organize and refold our clothes in the military-issue dresser for us.  The direction still has meaning today as I once filed student folders or even now when I roll towels in the clothes basket.   Most straightening these days is done on a flash drive or under “My Documents.” 

However, I can see further meaning in a motherly command as this.  “Straighten your room” is not about compartmentalizing our lives, our work desks or our clothes closet, even though the end result may be seeing the space between the jeans and socks again.  Mom’s spirit was in those words; her spirit of playing nice together and thinking of the other person.  My sister and I shared a room so for peace’s sake, organizing, folding, and rearranging our room was necessary because two sisters inhabited the space and shared primordial behaviors.  Plus, I found the socks and grubby plates that had disappeared.

“Quit rough-housing; play nice” and “Straighten your room.”  As a nation, we can control our roughhousing and how we seek out war, crime, or wrongdoing.

We can decide individually to play nice, play fair which would then transcend into the world.  We can make a difference in the lives that intersect with our own by being considerate of one another, setting priorities by having exchanges that are based on caring for one another. 

We can have a Mother’s Day, a get-together outside that is full of all the warmth of the San Luis Valley when we shun meanness as in “roughhousing” and opt for “playing nice” or being fair with one another.

We can be maskless, now, if we are mostly all vaccinated.

We can have a planet where we live in peace and love if we clean up our mess and get our priorities straight.