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Jeff forgot to call his mom on Mother’s Day.

Who does that?

I should have felt worse for his mother, whose ungrateful son probably broke her heart. But I had more selfish concerns when I found out about his transgression. I wondered how we were ever going to raise boys who invite us to move in with them when we’re old if we don’t even call our mothers on Mother’s Day?

To make it up to her, and to make sure it didn’t happen again next year, he decided to start calling her every day.

He got the idea from Armand Nicholi, a psychiatrist at Harvard Med School.  I took a course with Dr. Nicholi and on the first day of class, he told us that he used to ask all of his students what they would do if they only had one year to live.  After posing this challenge for several years, he decided he should answer the question for himself.  His answer was that he would call his parents every day.  So he started doing just that.  I took the class when he was nearly seventy.  His father was still alive, and Armand had been calling every day for more than two decades.

Tonight I realized that I too want to call home every day.  My dad’s heart and kidneys have seen better days.  My mom comes from a long line of people who die too early. For however long they and I have, I want to talk every day.

Being with the boys so much has made me feel more than a little guilty that I moved so far from my parents.  I can’t imagine the boys leaving.  How could I have done something so rotten to the people who bought me the Barbie Winnebago, let me buy a new outfit for the start of school even when we couldn’t afford it, sat through boring dance recitals, and worried that I was going to ruin my life with one of the many bad choices I made in high school?

So we’re gonna call our parents every day.  Their job, if I may be so bold, is to avoid talking about bowel movements, appliance repairs, changes to the menu at IHOP, their prescriptions, the weather channel, and anything to do with laundry.