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Buddy, Bruce, Sharon, and Larry. Long ago, to tease our mother, we four kids, or some of us, or at least, I’m sure, the boys of us, used to ask, “Who is your favorite child?”
“I love my children equally,” Mom would say.
When Mother was in her late eighties, entirely blind, quite hard of hearing, and sometimes so forgetful that she couldn’t call my father or me by name (although Dad and I were present with her every day), I would from time to time include that same question in the quizzes I gave to keep Mom’s mind exercised. She still replied dependably: she loved us children equally.
And yet, in those latter years, when Larry, the youngest child, the most troublesome and mischievous, I can say, phoned from far away, I would switch the telephone to speakerphone, bring it to our mother, and announce, “You have a call from your favorite child.”
Mom’s face would light with joy. “LAAAR-RY!” she would cry.
♦
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