My mom is the kindest person I’ve ever known. Every November, she’ll say to me, “I don’t want anything for my birthday. I don’t need anything.” She says this about Christmas too. And it never works.

Not with me. Because I like to give my mom nice gifts. Things she wouldn’t dream of buying for herself, but things I know she’ll like and appreciate.

Pink is her favourite colour. In recent years — and I’m not sure when this started — she’s taken to wearing lots of pink clothing: jackets, toques, scarves, socks, slippers. And so when I saw a pair of lovely pink gloves at Smith Army Surplus on one of my downtown strolls last week, I bought them straightaway. Plus a GORP energy bar.

They were displayed on the cash counter, is why, and I was reminded of some super nutritious food mentioned by one of the characters in Anne Tyler’s The Accidental Tourist. (It’s amusing to me how our favourite books seem to kind of follow us around.) Gardening one day, Rose tells her sister-in-law says she’s worried about “the boys.” The boys being her brothers, whom she’s always taken care of, in one way or another, in their parents’ ancestral home. But now that she’s moved out of the house, Rose says she’s worried because they’re eating something called “Gorp” for supper. She describes the ingredients, and I don’t recall them precisely but Gorp was something like a blend of healthy seeds and nuts and so on, somehow fashioned into a meal — one that tastes like wet chewy cardboard, likely. And so! — yes, of course, I had to treat my mom to a packet of GORP. The one with cocoa, flax, and almond. People eat these for energy while hiking or camping, or some such. And Mom walks a lot — sometimes 90 minutes a day, or three laps of their subdivision, where she knows practically everybody as well as their cats and dogs and the people they talk about.

Mom thanked me for the gloves. “They’re very nice,” she told me. When I asked her how the GORP was, she reported that Dad ate it, which made me laugh — because of course he did, likely thinking it might taste like some sort of candy.

“That’s about right,” Mom would say. She’s always hiding treats from Dad, and I won’t say where because my dad might be reading this. But even that is a kindness — Mom watches Dad’s diet because, as I’ve heard her say more than a few times, “Someone has to.”

I adore this photo of my mom and my grandmother. The happy, loving look on my mom’s face, gazing up at Gram. I find it difficult to read my grandmother’s expression. Photos are like that; they catch us at in-between moments. But I’d like to think she looks slightly bemused, patient, and content. It’s no surprise she was wearing what looks like a very practical coat. Practical shoes, too. Since she walked everywhere. My Gram Chapman was an exceedingly practical woman. As a single mom in the 1940s, she pretty much had to be. Frugal, hard-working, practical. She was always very generous, too. Astonishingly generous, I would say.

And in my Gram Chapman’s face here, I can see my mom’s. Which makes me smile and warms my heart. We do tend to live on in those we love.

The one neat thing Mom’s told me about this photo is that one her aunts put her hair in that very long braid. (Or maybe two long braids.) Her Aunt Dodie, I think it was. (She’ll correct me later, if I’m wrong.) “She was always doing things with my hair,” Mom told me. “Braiding it and styling it different ways.” Which makes me think that Mom’s aunts doted on and adored her, like she was the charming little princess of the family.

It’s impossible for me to look at this photo and to not think that my mom, at this age, would have been so much fun. Happy and playful, perhaps, as she so often is now, and has been for years. Likely all 78 of them.

On her 18th birthday, Mom will never forget, President Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. “They let us out of school,” Mom’s told me. “People were crying. No one knew what to do. It was such a sad day.”

I can only imagine. I could be wrong, but I seem to recall Mom telling me that Dad — they’d met in high school — brought her a cupcake at day’s end to cheer her up.

This photo was taken in North Bay, where I was born. I was a fat baby, Mom always reminds me — ten pounds, eleven ounces. Some of the nurses at the hospital in North Bay nicknamed me “The Football Player” evidently, a fact I still find rather charming.

I was born late, too, and Mom will remind me of this whenever I happen to be late for something. I was stubborn, she says, before I was born.

Mom is relaxing with Mickey on their backyard deck, in this photo. So many wonderful childhood memories from that backyard. When my sister and I were still kids, we went to Disney in Florida one Christmas. Dad drove us all down in our big blue whale of a Ford. One day at toll booth — they were everywhere, it seemed — Dad rolled down the window, chucked some coins in the receptacle, but when he went to roll up the window … well, the window wouldn’t budge. We drove to some town off the main highway, maybe in Georgia, I can’t recall, found a place that could fix up the window — and with Dad cursing our misfortune and telling us how damned expensive it was, we sat out on a picnic table and gorged on a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Strange thing I recall is it came with mashed potatoes and not French fries. The deeper south we drove, the more we understood just how much Americans were fond of mashed potatoes — and gravy. Man, they sure did love their gravy. Biscuits, too. And tater tots. By the end of that vacation, we were all fairly sick of tater tots.

Anyhow, this story relates to our backyard. As memory serves, Dad gave my sister Liz and I a choice: we could put a pool in the backyard, or we could spent Christmas at Disney. This was in 1978 or 1979, I think, so I was nine or ten, and my sister just two years older. There wasn’t much of an argument for the pool. We went to Disney.

Later in life, I’ve said to my dad, “You know, I wish we’d decided on the pool. I guess when we were kids we weren’t very forward thinking.”

And I think both Mom and Dad agreed that, no, we were not. Still, that trip was a blast!

Once they’d retired, Mom and Dad spent a few months every winter in Myrtle Beach, and they loved it. They would rent a modest cottage near Seaside Resort, and Mom would walk their dog, Mickey, all over the place — down the beach, into town, around the neighbourhood, while Dad had a special spot for Mickey on the golf cart they got to drive around; it came with the cottage rental.

My sister and her family would visit, if they could, and this photo was taken during one of those drop-ins.

Mom is like a dog whisperer, I swear. They all just love her, and she loves them. The same is absolutely true of cats, too. Strumbus might have been the first cat Mom ever loved, but he certainly wasn’t the last.

When I was away at college studying journalism, Mom took care of my cats — all three of them! Sammy, Riley, and Macon. They all adored her. Macon was one my dear friends in this life, it turned out. After I graduated, he came to live with me again and we were thick as thieves, and Macon, a big black gentle bear of a cat, was just fine every time we moved. He was happy everywhere we lived — Kingston, Westport, Perth. He liked the houses more than the apartments, I would wager, because he had lots of space outdoors to roam, and he didn’t really need a leash or a harness, as he never wandered out of view. Macon lived a long, happy life. Nineteen years we were together. The best of friends.

It likely won’t surprise anyone to hear that Mom adored Macon, and he adored her too. Mom knows how much Macon meant to me, and that I still miss him, very much. She’s always happy to see photos of him, to hear stories. Macon was absolutely a beloved member of our family. That my mom appreciates this — and doesn’t think it silly when I say such things, and I do — is part of her kindness.

Yes, Mom still makes me delicious meals, from time to time, and brings them down. Sometimes she’ll see something that needs cleaning, and she’ll just go ahead and do it. Really, there’s no stopping her.

She’s comical about it. “Your maid’s off this week, huh?” she’ll say.

That one is burned in my brain.

In the last two years, I’ve had some major health issues. Trouble with mobility and such. To help, my mom is forever picking things up for me. When she grocery shops, for instance, she’ll ask me if I need anything. If I do, she’ll pick it. Then my parents will drive it down and drop it off, at some point, and I’ll pay them back. They’re both very loving and generous, and they don’t really think twice about it. Sometimes they’ll pick up something for me without telling me. Something I normally need. Or once in a while, a treat — a burger and fries from Harvey’s. That kind of thing.

My apartment can get a little untidy at times, too, because it’s difficult for me to clean it. Mom’s paid for a cleaner to come in, more than once. And that is the sort of gift she’s prone to give. Ones that matter. Ones that show you she cares, and she’s paying close attention.

She always has.

Well, today, on her 78th birthday, it’s our turn to treat Mom. Dad is taking her to Swiss Chalet for lunch. I reminded Mom the Festive Special is on the menu at the moment, but she says she’ll just get what she likes — plus pie. Today calls for pie.

Coconut cream pie, she told me. Her Aunt Marion’s favourite.

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