We all have them; moms that is. And when I come home and hit ‘play’ on my answering machine and hear my mom’s voice a tiny tremor goes through me. Don’t get me wrong. I love her, really I do.

Here, listen to this message from her: “Hi Janie, it’s your mother. I just wanted to remind you that Grandma Stevie and Grandma Schmidt both had breast cancer. Have a nice day honey. Bye.”

I am not sure about you, but I do not know quite how to take that. Run into the shower and do that soap, feel yourself thing, make an appointment, cry or laugh out loud. So today, faced with a blank page and the sky the limit, I think of my mom’s most recent telephone message.

I had sent her a picture of me, when I was young wearing the kimono that my dad had brought home for me from Japan for Christmas. I slipped on the kimono, over my footed pajamas, slapped on my brother’s Hai Karate cologne and promptly began doing a cross between James Bond, ‘The Karate Kid,’ and ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’ Someone in the family snapped a photo that I recently came across and mailed to her.

Her message on my answering machine consisted of fits of uncontrollable laughter in between her gasping to spit out the words. I was getting frustrated listening and just when I was about to hit delete, she stopped laughing long enough to breathe and said, “Oh Janie, you always were such a creepy little kid!”

I paused.

Still pausing...

Weeks later…I’m pretty sure she meant “cute kid"???!!!!