As far as I can tell, everyone I know has been victimized by what I like to call “mom’s favorite phrase.” Of course, most of us have a different one to relate… a mom’s response to how you dress (You’re really wearing that?) or how you do your hair (Did you see that on some TV show and think it looked good?) or that thing she says that makes it seem like she lives to embarrass you (Oh, I know she doesn’t like it, but I’m her mama, so I get to call her “baby doll” no matter how old she is.)
My mother’s favorite phrase is guaranteed to lift my shoulders to my ears, tense up my neck, and make me clench my teeth. “I could be dead by… (insert necessary time frame here).”
–We try to plan a visit to my brother’s family in the fall. “But I could be dead by October.”
–I invite her to spend Mother’s Day with me in the city. “But I could be dead by that weekend.”
–A friend invites her on a road trip to Nevada. “Well, she wants to go in April, but I could be dead by April.”
Why is that the phrase I wish I could get some higher power to permanently ban from usage where my mother is concerned? Well, because frankly, I don’t like to be reminded that there will be a day when she will be dead by… I know it’s inevitable, I know it’s the way things are supposed to work, but really, who wants to think about that?
She gets mad at me every time I remind her she’s not allowed to say that to me, and tells me that I take everything she says too seriously. I’m sure that’s true to some extent. She is, after all, the person who could pronounce a death sentence over my social life for days, week, and months at a time for an 18-year period of my life… I learned to take what my mother said very seriously during those 18 years. And I know that what she really means is, “yes, let’s make plans, but just know that things can change and don’t get mad at me if they do.”
Recently, though, I’ve had a new thought about the dreaded “dead by” phrase. And I think it’s bothered me my whole life not just because every time she says it, an image conjures of a world without my mother in it, but because those words have always sounded like a reason not to do things… not to make plans or chase a dream. Instead of hearing it the way she meant it, I heard, “why bother?”
As I worked on my pilot “Thin Air” and as I struggle through the outline for my latest, I’ve realized that’s the question that interests me most about all my characters. Why bother? Why would I bother to write them? Why would you bother to watch them? What is it that makes them say “to hell with that, buy the plane tickets and let’s make the plans”? And what makes them shake their heads and say “why bother”? Exploring those issues with my detectives in “Thin Air” and with the driven and yet incredibly vulnerable McKellar family in the “in progress” script has led to whole blocks of writing time spent self-debating why a son comes home to a father he no longer believes in and why a daughter can’t begin her future until she confronts the worst moment of her past. It’s finding those answers that reminds me, I’d do this every day for the rest of my life, even if no one ever paid me (but really, someone should pay me!)
As it turns out, for all my moaning and groaning about it, even when my mom says IT, she usually gives in and makes the plans. Oh, there’s a lot of bitching and me having to plead and sometimes get a little snippy, but we usually end up on the plane to my brother’s, or she comes to the big city for a week of shopping and running around crazy with yours truly, or she accepts her friend’s invitation and goes on the road trip, which leads to her annoyance when I tell her to remember to call when she gets where she’s going (Since when do I have to call you? I am the mama here).
Because sure… things can change, plans can blow up, and the risks… oh, torturous! Technically, she’s right. She could… we all could be dead by… but making the plans… making the plans means we hope we’ll still be here… which is why I like to think she always ends up making them.
And you know what she never says it about? She never says it about the day she gets to see “written by Niceole Levy” on her TV screen. She has definite plans to be here for that. And I’m plotting away at this laptop, doing my best to deliver.
Let’s make the plans!
niceolelevy 