The best thing your parents ever said

[MiddleFingerMom]

5. MiddleFingerMomMom died at the age of 81 the day after 9/11/2001. A year or so before that...

..
.
... just before she slipped into the completely uncommunicative endstage
of Alzheimer's, she swore me to secrecy and told me that, though I had
been the child who had given her the most trouble (true -- not a bad
boy, but VERY disobedient and willful), I had also been her favorite.
.
She also asked me if I ever wondered why she would call me across
the country or even around the world when she had nothing of any
substance to say. MiddleFingerMomDad was emotionally abusive
and very controlling and on her really bad days, though I never
knew this reason, she would call because she KNEW that by the
end of the call, I would have her laughing and in a much better
place.
.
How nice were those two things?
.
.
.