Mother's Day 2

It's about twenty minutes until Mother's Day. The countdown has begun. Our children are far away and their mother is fast asleep. Tomorrow she will get phone calls. Mother's Day once was the busiest day for the telephone company. Now, everyone is on the phone all the time so it's probably impossible to tell. When all this cell-phone stuff started I wondered what everyone had to say that was so important. But just yesterday I got a picture of a drawbridge sent from my son's cell phone, and the day before that I got a message from my daughter's Blackberry that she was meeting an old friend of mine. Then I got a message from his Blackberry that he had met her.

What could be cooler than that?

I was talking to a client of mine who works in software, and he is worried that his job is about to go to India. I figured that my job is one of the few that can't be sent overseas. Sure, people try to do therapy over the phone, or by webcam, or even telepathically, but don't be fooled. Insist on the real thing. Despite all the technology there will never be anything as beneficial as real, person-to-person contact. As any modern materialist, reductionist will tell you, it stirs up all the right chemicals in the brain.

I know that my job often gives a distorted picture of how the world actually works. I know that there really are a whole lot of great mother's out there. Most mothers have nurtured their children, protected them, encouraged them and loved them, as well as they possibly could. I hope yours did. It makes life easier.

So, if you can, pay Mom a real live visit. Take her bowling, steam-up a pot of spinach, buy her a new kite, play a game of jacks, let her win at poker, gather the family around and watch "Gremlins" once more time. There's nothing like real, human contact.

Happy Mother's Day! If you don't have a mother, or you can't be with yours, or you chose not to because it really isn't worth the aggravation, then you don't have to feel guilty about watching the Sox.