Worth a thousand words

In an age where we have become accustomed to texting or Facebooking our feelings about holidays and other significant dates, the familiar greeting card is heading the way of leisure suits and wall-mounted bottle openers.

The pandemic hasn't helped, what with Hallmark trying to figure out how to manufacture our sentiments during a modern plague. The global market for greeting cards declined steeply in 2020, and wasn't expected to improve this year. And yet, billions of them still go out every year here and around the world.

Some of them are my mother's.

As I have written here before, she has so much she wants to put into words that she uses her calendar as a diary. She still writes the occasional letter, but cards are a must. Ironically, since what she says sometimes trips on its way out of her mouth and stumbles like an alley drunk, her writing is crystal clear, not to mention pretty.

It is cursive of another era, and she is appalled most schools don't teach it anymore. I've heard this particular plaint at least a dozen times, along with others that bemoan how much things have changed, and not for the better:

"These kids always have their noses in the damn phones."

Translation: The grandchildren are not giving grandmom their full attention.

"If they're so bored, let them do some housework."

Translation: She made my siblings and me clean the house, and we turned out just fine. (We did, but I haven't cleaned my own house in years.)

"I'm glad I'm on my way out."

Translation: She's glad she's on her way out.

Yet mom is in good health and always ready to be active. She enjoys, sometimes demands, spending time with the grandchildren. She never lets her own Jitterbug phone ring without answering. Her voicemails are full of detail:

"This is your mother. I'm calling to thank you for the gorgeous card I received today and to tell you that I had a wonderful day. I just wanted to say goodnight and I hope you're having a wonderful time. Allright darling, I love you. Bye bye."

But the act of writing out a card is a particular pleasure. Mom buys them at the dollar store -- "because the other stores have a lot of guts charging $5 for a card" -- and stuffs them with sentiment so they look like one of the days on her calendar:

Thanks for all you do for me. 

And?

And since you and Frank (her son-in-law) are so good at making new recipes, could you try this one?

It was fusilli with artichokes, the instructions for which she found in a magazine and taped to the inside of my Mother's Day card, along with this sentiment: You're a very lucky woman.

In truth, I'm a very lucky daughter.

If my mother's words to me were leaves, I would need a mighty oak to contain them. No card would be large enough, no voicemail long enough.

Not that she won't keep trying.

Hello, sweetheart. I have wonderful news for you: I feel great today. I got all dolled up to go out. Fixed my hair. You would be proud of me. I adore you, bye.