Time for cheers and tears after 10 years

Out of the blue -- Hawaiian blue no less -- my sister texts me earlier this week.

“I think it’s been 10 years since Mom passed, I think it’s today,” she writes from her vacation in Hawaii where she and husband Ken were visiting my niece Chelsea and her husband.

With a five-hour time difference, I receive this message at 7 p.m., home alone, battling a stomach virus and curled up under a blanket.

She’s exactly right, I realize after noting the date, and my heart sinks.

“I’ll toast to her tonight at a luau,“ my sister suggests, “She loved Hawaii.”

I respond that I think that is perfect, and if she’ll let me know when, I’ll raise a glass to my dear mother as well.

Kind of tearing up here home alone, I advise.

The return text message seems to take only seconds to cover more than 4,000 actual miles.

“Big hugs to you,” Jennifer adds. “I choked up reading your notes.”

Seriously, it has been 10 years, which doesn’t seem possible, as we all know when we lose a loved one.

But I’d always taken some foolish pride in the fact I had never cried when either of my parents passed away. I’ve always thought it was being tough but more likely it can be blamed it on the neutrality I’ve had to take in my job. I have to coldly observe and not get emotional.

Yet here I was, 10 years later and a couple thousand miles from Southern California where she lived, and my eyes are welling up and a tear or two is slowly making its way down my cheek.

So the little bar that my sister and all are going to opens at 4 p.m. Hawaii time. That’s 9 p.m. here for you daylight saving buffs.

She texts that they’ll order drinks and then text me, so we can have a heart-wrenching moment together at 9:35.

Tucked into my recliner, all I had to toast with was a bottle of 7-Up, not a seven-and-seven or something stronger but good old stomach-settling 7-Up.

The magic moment comes and I’m greeted with a photo text of the smiling four of them, dressed for the islands, raising mai tais to Mom. I joined in with my 7-Up raised on high.

I think Mom would have liked that.

After all, she wasn’t much of a drinker. I remember her making grasshoppers in the blender once or twice and enjoying an occasional high ball, as drinks were called in those days. A shot of booze, lots of ice and heavy on the mixer, that was a high ball.

But I’ll never forget the time she was in Greencastle and we all went out to eat, even my daughter and her boyfriend in their last year at DePauw.

After dinner we headed home and pulled the car into the garage before my daughter announced she and Bill were heading to Moore’s Bar for karaoke.

“Oh, I’ll go to Moore’s Bar,” Mom quickly interjects like she knows the place or something.

So there we were at midnight at Moore’s Bar, standing around a high-top table, staring at our drinks. Me with my wife, my daughter and my Mother at the bar as good, old Bill sings “The Rodeo Song,” nasty lyrics and all.

She loved it.

And I believe she would have loved our toast.

My Mother, still making me sentimental after 10 years. Here come the tears ...