MOTHER ISSUES: APRIL 6, 2008

A few weeks ago one of my cousins from back in North Carolina sent me an email to let me know he reads my blog from time to time. He wrote: "...seems to me you have 'Mother' issues...guess if I thought about it, I might as well...am I missing something?" I had to chuckle because if there is one thing I am confident of, it is that most of my male cousins and I share mother issues of one sort or another. We are the sons of seven sisters who raised us lopsided in one way or another for one reason or another then launched us on the world (actually most of us had to launch ourselves because our mothers didn't really know how to do that right). Now most of us have arrived at middle age with marriages, relationships and various men, women and children sloshing in our wakes like so much debris. Some of our sisters haven't fared much better, but in general our mothers did a better job with girls than with boys. Five of the seven sisters are dead. My mother died April 6, 2006. My cousin's mother died a few years earlier. But they are still among us and I am sure my cousins and I have things to talk about; but we were raised around people who preferred to leave things (usually the most important things) un-talked about, so I don't know if we ever will.