Mom was always full of surprises

There’s this woman on Facebook who spends her time making little videos of herself without makeup and with makeup.

Her no-makeup visage is so radically different from her made-up face with fake teeth that I really wonder if it’s the same person.

I mean, I suppose it is because she’s not selling anything.

It’s just some of the stuff one sees on the internet.

My mom had fake teeth to hide the place where her own two front teeth used to be.

Mom had a great sense of humor, so I don’t think she’d mind if I tell a tale at her expense.

Mom’s in Montreal, anyway.

I should explain.

Mom “went on to Glory” about 11 years ago. A few days after she passed, I had a dream where she and I were walking toward a bus station.

I was holding her suitcase in one hand and walking my bicycle with the other.

“Where are you going?” I asked her.

“Montreal,” Mom said.

“Why?”

“I’ve never been,” she said.

So I set my bike beside the bus, handed her suitcase to the driver to put with other luggage and I walked with her to her seat on the bus.

She got to her seat and I stood in the aisle.

“Before I go, let me tell you something,” Mom said, pointing a finger at me and looking me right in the eye.

“Stop taking life so seriously, and tell that to your oldest too,” she said.

I did tell my oldest what her grandmother said.

“Why didn’t she come see me?” she asked.

“I don’t know sweetie. Maybe she thought you were too busy,” I said.

Stuff I found out about Mom usually came as a surprise. For instance, after Dad died she told how she had been married once before.

That was a surprise.

There was that time when I was little, I came out of my room during a party my parents were having and Mom was having a cigarette.

I’d never seen my mom smoke before.

I stood in the living room in my fire truck pajamas, so named for the fire trucks all over them, dumbfounded.

“What?” Mom said.

“You’re smoking,” I said, kind of in shock.

“It’s called a social cigarette. Now go to the kitchen, get what you wanted and go back to your room,” Mom said.

So this thing about Mom and her two front teeth …

I was probably about 10, it was a Saturday morning, I had been in the living room watching cartoons and I decided to go back to my room and play with my electric train.

I walked by the bathroom, the door was open, there was Mom brushing her teeth, so I yelled “Boo!”

She turned around, got real close to my face and went, “Grrrrrrrrrr.”

There, amidst the foamy toothpaste, was a big gap where I usually saw teeth.

“Aieeeeee” I screamed and ran down the hall, Mom chasing me going, “Grrrr, grrrr, grrrr.”

Then she stopped.

She was laughing so hard tears were coming from her eyes.

“What happened to your teeth?” I kind of yelled.

“When I was in high school, I was at a roller rink and I fell. Before I could get up, someone roller skated right into my teeth. Knocked out my two front ones,” she said.

So Mom had two front teeth missing all that time and I never knew.

Until that Saturday morning long ago.

Grant McGee writes for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him:

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