Eating Pizza On The Porch

Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 85. She's been gone a little over a year, and while I still miss her, mostly what I remember are the happy times, the little moments that make me smile.

I've mentioned my love of pizza a time or two. I love the casualness of it. The friendly sharing of it, straight out of the box.

Mum was always a little more formal in her approach to food and to life than I. Some things Were Done (like ironing and making the bed every day) and some things were Not Done, like, say eating dinner on the front porch.

But one day, while we were living with her, we talked her into it. It was one of those perfect, sunny summer days that here in Canada we feel honour-bound to take advantage of. Every summer day wasted seems to add a week to the coming winter.

So we ordered the pizza, poured the wine and got ourselves settled on the front porch. A few protestations and then the day and the food started to work their magic. We all relaxed and chatted and smiled. Eating and drinking and watching the world go by.

One of the neighbour boys walked past and nodded in greeting. I didn't know who he was, but Mum did. "Oh, that's so and so," she explained before calling out, "Hi! Want some pizza?"

I nearly fell off the porch. I would have sworn that hailing random neighbours and offering pizza slices would fall in the category of Not Done.

And that's when I realized that our parents have as many secrets, as many facets of themselves hidden from us as we do from them.

And what a joy it is to be able to witness some new aspect.