Celebrating my mom’s 97th birthday

Mom four years ago with my daughter, Brooke, pregnant with Addi, and my wife, Kathie, at Brooke’s home in Bonney Lake.

BEND, Ore. - My mom, Maxine DeLapp, turns 97 years old today.

She’s celebrating her birthday with her husband, Dick, at one of her favorite places - Long Beach on the Washington coast.

Last year my wife and I and my sister and her husband went to Long Beach to join them on her 96th birthday.

This year she insisted we stay home and that we’d see her soon since mom will be coming to Bend later this week and heading to Scottsdale, where my sister, Deb, lives, in October.

Deb and I pushed back on that initially because we all realize at her age - as much as we want to think otherwise - it could be her last birthday, and we’d feel terrible in hindsight if we missed it if it is.

We’re naturally hoping she’ll be here for her 98th and 99th birthdays and God willing, 100th birthday in 2029. Her grandmother lived to 102 so based on that alone, I’m thinking mom has a shot to hit the century mark.

Yeah, she’s slowed down, quite a bit in fact. She can still get around but needs a walker and sometimes uses a wheelchair.

A year ago or so, she apologized to me for not being very mobile anymore.

I told her I didn’t care about that, I just felt fortunate I still had my mom, and it was more important that she still had her mental faculties, which she thankfully does.

What makes her such a great mom? One simple thing - her love for her kids.

That’s always been there. Never a doubt. Something that Deb and I could always count on.

To this day, phone conversations typically end with her saying: “Know that I love you.”

You will find this hard to believe, but my mom has never thought I wrote a bad column or had a bad sports radio show. I know otherwise, but she thinks I can do no wrong.

Mom wants to live long enough to see what her two youngest grandkids, Mikey and Stevie, do with their careers now that they’re out of school.

And she’ll get a first-hand view of it soon. In the next two weeks, the boys will move in and live with their grandparents in Fairwood as they start their commercial real estate careers in Seattle.

Apparently you can do well in commercial real estate down the road, but early on the income is non-existent to barely existent, certainly not enough to pay for an apartment, thus the unusual temporary living arrangement.

Mom also hopes to still be here to see the Mariners play in their first World Series. I wrote about her baseball desire in this column that appeared in the Tacoma News Tribune last year.

At that time, she said: “I don’t have that many interests aside from my kids and grandkids. Baseball’s the one thing I thoroughly enjoy, Jim. I’ve waited a long time. I’m hoping and praying this might be their year. The years are flying by. Honey, they’ve gotta do it sometime.”

A few weeks ago she told me: “Jimmie, I’m gonna be 97 pretty soon, they better hurry up.”

Mom watches every game. Deb and I know not to call her during the games or even when the pre- and post-game shows are on because whatever Brad and Angie have to say can’t be missed.

I was surprised last week when she went to bed and didn’t watch the end of one of the games, so fed up by another hitless performance that she couldn’t take it anymore.

Last year in Long Beach we had one of those difficult conversations you don’t want to have but need to have involving wills and trusts.

I heard what my mom and her husband and my sister had to say about all of that but I wasn’t really listening.

I just know when the time comes to actually go through that stuff, my mom won’t be here anymore, and I don’t want to talk about anything relating to that.

When it comes to my mom, I’ll do what the therapists tell you to do with everything else, I’ll stay in the present and enjoy the time we have left.

I’ll call and sing happy birthday to her today and look forward to watching Mariner games with her this weekend and see her get excited about Cole, frustrated with Cal and maybe even shake her head at Randy.

And I’ll be grateful for the bonus time with my mom.