Donovan Kelly
Crummy But Good Writer with a Lighter Touch
One of those special mother-son moments. After 70 years, Mom and I finally had the bra talk.
Mom is 90 and the arthritis in her hands has gotten so bad she has stopped baking apple pies. She can’t peel apples herself anymore, and refuses to bake pies with apples peeled by strangers. This is well-placed pride, since her apple pies were famous and often used to bribe work crews. Her pies put gravel in her driveway and a private street light in her yard.
This morning, Mom said her hands were so bad that she had trouble putting on her bra. “It got all twisted up. I just may start going bra-less.”
In the nearly 70 years I have known this proud woman, she has never once threatened to go bra-less. In fact, I don’t think she ever said the word “bra” out loud to me before, let alone discussed the difficulties of putting one on.
I suggested that what might have been even more useful to me, at least in my earlier lustier years, was an explanation of how to take one off. All those traumatic fumbling moments of my youth that might have been avoided by a little mother-son bra instruction.
Mom ignored me. Lust was not encouraged, even after 50 years of fumbling hindsight.
Certain words are still not to be said in Mom’s presence. Besides all the best cuss words, the ongoing ban includes such semi-harmless words as “fart“ and “bra.” Saying that “f” word still earns a stern rebuke. The saying “bra” ban began when our little sister was in her sensitive training period and her four brothers weren’t allowed to tease her. How could we when we hadn’t had the mother-son bra talk and didn’t know what we were teasing about?
We also had been carefully trained not to stare, so I tried not to picture my mother bra-less. Yet I can remember well her obvious chestal pride in the halter tops she wore in her younger days. She still looks great in a pants suit and she knows it.
Trying to be helpful, I suggested Mom mark her troublesome bra with finger nail polish. She had done this to key electrical switches in the kitchen that she couldn’t see as fast as she wanted to. The troublesome switches now wear bright red finger nail polish and cherry red “off” arrows.
I suggested that she mark her bra “right” and “left” to help unravel the twisting problem. “No, son,” she replied with that deep sigh that women reserve for men who can never understand, “that wouldn’t help.”
Mom ended our special conversation saying, “And you had better not write a story about this.” Sorry Mom. Guess I’m just another bad boy who wasn’t brought up right.