By the pound

I've always said being a journalist can also apply to being a mother: Parenthood takes you places you wouldn't normally go. The same applies to grandmothers, which is why my mother and I found ourselves at a nearby gym on a recent Sunday that oozed machismo, where an all-day weightlifting competition my son participated in featured people with muscles in places I didn't know existed.

Not exactly the ShopRite on Wednesday, our weekly destination. That's the trip we make when Mom says she needs a few things and we end up with eight bags of groceries. So you can imagine the dichotomy: the gym, where pounds are measured in triple digits, and the supermarket, where lifting means stealing something.

The gym where we found ourselves resides in a shabby strip center in South Jersey. Inside, we sat on folding chairs for about six hours, with breaks for pizza and the dollar store. The rest of the time, we found ourselves in a setting where really bulky men lifted hundreds of pounds in three categories, including the dead lift, which may as well have meant plastic surgery to replace outdated skin for all I knew about my adult son's chosen sport.

Earlier that day, she had commandeered the TV remote, at one point calling it a pacemaker, to watch "her show." That is code for "CBS This Morning," with Jane Pauley. On the way to the gym, she briefly had her mind on politics, wondering what all the fuss is about Roe v. Robin. I still can't get her to call the virus COVID; she calls it COVIC, which sounds like a cop show. 

Back to the competition. Each time my son appeared, each time his veins rippled like waves as he lifted anywhere from 300 to 600 pounds, Mom practically closed her eyes and held her hands to her mouth. And each time he successfully unloaded those weights, she went back to her folding chair and almost cried.

When he finished, my son, his hands dusty with the chalk that helps him grip the bars, had a grin as wide as an accordion on his face and a hug for his grandmother. Not that he had much choice after she wrapped her arms around his thick shoulders and pulled him in.

It's a weight that will never be too heavy.



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important muscle,, brain

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