"don't you think i'm good enough for you?"

i often think of moms especially when i listen to the music that she played during the day while cleaning and doing her housewifey stuff...whatever that entailed. remember that i was only five when she and pops died, so these memories are very old, recalled behind a veil of tears, loss,regret and wonder...always wonder.
as is often said of people that die young: my parents will always be young, beautiful and, in my mind at least, smart, funny and bursting with life and as an extension laughter. they laughed a lot, we all laughed a lot.
my uncle michael is my mother's brother and when i spend any amount of time with him, the conversation always includes talk about moms: her singular walk, her reaching into her pocket and applying lipstck a 100 times a day. i ask the uncs: how was she as a child? was she good in school? did she ever want to be a psychologist? did she ever tell you that she loved me?
ok: so the music, always music playing in my parents home. as i have said before laura nyro was a favorite of moms and has also become a genuine favorite of mine.
(thinking about this only now and not aware of what was really happening in moms life)i remember that moms loved playing, what i now call, love songs that make you want to slit your wrists: case in point..."i try" by angela bofill now playing on my ipod thing on this page. i love this song.
one time i put this song on when bob was over and i walked out of the room so he would be forced to listen to it. i really wanted to see if he would relate, if he would have something to say about it or if he would ignore it (this would not have been good). bob is by nature emotionally reticent often incapable of expressing his feelings to another person. he does open up with me, of course. it has to do with trust and he trusts me...and i him.
(you might be thinking: how is it that someone whose career it is to open up others emotionally cannot himself open up? good question but having been a patient of his for several months and going into that same profession myself soon i now know that it is not the therapists "job" to open up to his patients but the other way around)
so anyway: bob and the song, "i try." he loved it and wanted to hear it again. when he had heard it again he said: that woman who is singing is very desperate, she is also very sad. she sounds beaten down. there is only just a shred of hope there, innit?
i remember coming back from i guess 1st grade and hearing "i try" playing and moms sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee (or i assumed it was coffee) and trying to hide from me the obvious tears falling from her eyes. i don't think that there is a worse feeling than seeing your mother cry. internally and externally actually i went a little crazy. i wasn't her big boy at that moment. i was a blubbering, scared shitless little dweeb who wanted her to stop, wanted to know what was wrong.
she covered up her sadness with a smile and a short laugh and proceeded to feed me.