Well, my mother would have been 79 today had she lived. What a funny sentence. Had she lived. She did live. And we loved her. We still talk about her amongst ourselves. Things she would’ve done, or said, or thought, or liked, or given or not taken. She would have given somebody “one hard watch” and not taken “that damn nonsense.” it’s a funny thing this part of life where the person lives on beyond their body, in dreams, or in funny scenarios. The other day we went to see Creed 2, my first ever big-screen Rocky movie. Creed was my first ever rocky movie and I had watached the film in flight. I wasn’t prepared for the on screen slugfest. I am softie. The kind of softie known to cover her eyes in cartoons. But midway through the movie, I remembered the glorious boxing days of Ali, Foreman, etc. And, my mother who was a great sports wife, even though that is something you would never believe unless you saw it. She usually knew just enough to provoke my Dad’s disbelief of her pedestrian understanding of the sport. It was mostly very amusing to witness. What did she care? She didn’t Our Mom was an amazing smack talker. It was the same wit and sharp mind that helped her negotiate at the office when black women had more of a hierarchy then they do now. But watching sports, she could say and do just as she pleased. Mummy method was consistent. She picked an athlete or two and then idolized the effe out of that person. My Dad would want her to look at the sport more objectively and she would fan-girl until you would think only Wayne Gretzky played hockey, by himself. Somewhere in Creed, I remembered Mummy watching welterweight through heavyweight matches. Instead of entering the land of my books or my dolls, like I did as a young girl, I remembered how she and her guy would holler at the screen. He would shake his head in disbelief. They would say in their Guyanese lingo, “We goin’ another round” "Punch, nuh man!" "Get off the ropes." “Hol’ on to he,” when the boxers looked more like a couple dancing. “Punch! Yes, knock ‘e flat!” At Creed 2, I remembered how it was to be watching and to see my parents lively interaction. I whispered to my guy “Hyo would have loved to see this movie ...”. Even though, I knew that somehow she already had.
