I guess I needed another cup of coffee, because a ghost of my mother appeared. She complained, “Why didn’t you remember me, on mother’s day?” I’d been working on my standup comedy so I wanted to make that my excuse.  The gist of the routine was that I’m in a improv workshop and the teacher has each student come to the front of the class and the students would give their impressions and when they got to me there was a consensus that I was straight. I was horrified! How did this happen?  Finally my mom must be turning over in her grave, in gratitude, she as a straight son. Not really-she loved me unconditionally.”

My mother was hard of hearing and I wonder if her Ghost heard the last part. She really did accept my gayness, unconditionally. When my first lover, Scott, was dying of AIDS she never questioned how he got sick. She was like a mother to him-when Scott’s parents wanted nothing to do with him. My mom would rub his feet. I guess my mother was a Jewish saint.

But as I drank my second cup of coffee, my mother’s ghost remained. Would another cup make her disappear or maybe I didn’t want the ghost to disappear.