Mary Schmich - The Best of Mary Schmich

My mother turns 70 today, Mothers Day, and though Ive known her more than half her life, I cant claim to know her.

I could present reams of data about her life: Born and raised in Macon, Ga. Married at the age of 29 and by the age of 39 had given birth to eight children. Fine pianist until arthritis slowed her hands. Lived for a year with her husband and children in a string of single, seedy Phoenix motel rooms and never lost her sense of humor. Very weird sense of humor.

I could even provide some plausible interpretation of these facts, but I wouldnt get it right. The older I get, the more my mother seems to me as opaque as stone.

I have friends who feel the same way. We marvel that we know stunningly intimate details about each other without knowing half as much about our mothers. Its not that we dont get along with our mothers, but getting along is not the same as knowing. It is, in fact, sometimes a convenient substitute.

When did your mother go through menopause? Did she ever love a man besides your father? Did she, does she, love your father? Was her heart ever broken? How does she feel about sex? What does she really think about her life? About your life?

Do you know these things? Are you sure?

Growing up, you dont think about whether you know your mother. Shes just there, as functional as furniture. Later, it is hard to start asking questions, even if, as I do, you consider her a friend.

My own mothers life comes to me in glimpses and glimmers. She has taken to making surprising remarks at odd moments, as if after years of hoarding her inner life, she now wants to share some of what she kept hidden. Or maybe she has simply decided that only in revealing her life will she herself come to see it clearly.

A few weeks ago, while we sat at TV tables in her apartment, eating dinner in front of Designing Women, I described a big, sumptuous wedding I had recently attended. She looked pensive.

If I had it to do over again, she said, I would have a very small, intimate wedding. It never occurred to me that I could do that. Mother wanted something grand. And I didnt question it.

She was talking softly, without resentment, analyzing her own life with the dispassionate curiosity of a historian.

But then, women didnt question much of anything in those days, she said. When we got married, we were supposed to give up everything that came before, without question, and do things we werent trained to do.

She laughed. Like bake. She paused. I gave up music. And to do what? To iron sheets?

Until that moment, I hadnt known that in the early years of her marriage, my mother had actually ironed sheets. More important, I hadnt known she had ever noticed, or cared, how much she gave up.

So now I knew, and we went back to watching TV. I had learned a little more about my mother, accompanied by a sitcom laugh track.

My brothers and sisters and I occasionally talk about the facts and feelings we should extract from our mother before its too late. Each of us knows a detail or two that the others dont, and if we pool our puzzle pieces, we can put together a picture of her greater than what any of us could alone. Still, there remain huge gaps.

Well get Mom to tell us about her life on video, we sometimes say. We never quite get around to it, in part, I think, because as much as we want to know her better, we are afraid of knowing her. Afraid most, I think, of knowing her disappointments.

I suspect she would see that as the naivete of children and tell us that what we perceive as loss and failure she sees simply as life.

Its inevitable that mothers remain a mystery to their children, and maybe its best that way. But heres an idea for Mothers Day. If youre lucky enough that your mother is still alive, ask her a question, just one, that might help you know her a little better. A lot of mothers would probably like to be asked.

The women I know spend a fair amount of time discussing how different we are from our mothers. We are so different that we sometimes wonder if we crawled into our cribs straight from some aliens womb.

How are we different from our mothers? Sometimes we count the ways.

We put up with less from men, we ask for more from work. We are franker about sex and finickier about our coffee. We curse more and iron less, and were not as apt to believe that everything from war to rush-hour gridlock can be solved by prayer.

We are not certain we are happier, but we figure we must be because one thing is for sure: We wouldnt want to live the way our mothers have.