“Don’t run!  You’ll fall on your bazottle!”  my mom shouted out with a smirk.  She used to  make up or modify words to be funny.  “I will use this Christmas wrapping paper roll as a whep-uhn!”  I incorporate the same dialogue with my wife these days, “Hey stop hoggin’ the covers!  You are going to Pla-srurb my beast.”  The beast, being our little dog Charlie.

Mom would often use her dog for conversation, “Molly sure misses you, she likes it when you come and visit.”  I think back on those moments and smile.  As a dad today, I use our cocker spaniel poodle to make my family laugh.  The dog will make a weird face and I will say, “Sorry about eating the trash, but uh… I’m just a dog, man.”  My kids will laugh and laugh.  My middle daughter has started up a story book and she wrote that one of the cats was giving her “the stink eye”.  I smiled and cried a little, because that kind of talk all started with my mom.

In March 2017, it will be nine years since she passed away.  I miss her perpetually.  But I often find a way to smile, when I see her echo in something I say, something I see in my kids, or something off the wall in a dog’s silly voice over.

Copyright © 2017 Zachary W Gilbert