Every Day is Mother's Day

We Don't Have to Wait Until May 14.

May 05, 2023

Mother’s Day is just over a week away. To me, it’s about recognizing and appreciating the women who have impacted our lives.

Many of you have mothers or know people who do (lol), and the terms ‘mother’ or ‘motherly’ sometimes carry negative connotations but I have always interpreted it as meaning caring, nurturing, influencing and so many more, so this column is really a love letter to my mom.

She passed away in 2006. In tennis whites, with a tennis racquet in one hand and a pack of Marlboros in the other. That was Lee Kluger.

I delivered her eulogy. I was proud of it then and I am today.

Boy..did I pick a lousy day to stop drinking.

My mom was 80 years old. Never needed glasses. She drank straight from the bottle.

Go ahead..Laugh..Our house was always about laughing. At ourselves and yeah..sometimes at others. But I suspect we were like many families. And like those of you sitting here today.

Do you remember the Robbins Vaccine? How about the famous Kroll Game Company? Do you recall someone yelling "Give Him Safar" when someone stopped breathing?

Probably not. Dr. Frederick Robbins found a way to cultivate the polio virus in a tissue culture, preceding the development of the Salk and Sabin vaccines. Fred Kroll invented the games Trouble and Hungry Hungry Hippos for the Kohner and Hasbro companies. Dr. Peter Safar combined mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with closed-chest cardiac compression which came to be known as CPR.

And while they were not very well known, they left legacies behind.

How does one measure a year in a life? According to the Broadway hit Rent, it's 525,600 minutes and can be measured in daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee.

This is a fan letter of sorts to my mom. She didn’t invent a vaccine, a board game or beat on my chest..well, she did just a few times but if I had waited to note her contribution until we all read it in a paper, I would have done a disservice to her and I myself, depriving ourselves of a most wonderful thing: reaching out and touching someone when they were alive, when they were around to hear our words. And I did my best to remind her and myself every week.

My success as a person is due to nurture. Not in that coddling, "let me make that decision for you" kind of parenting, but, rather, "let me give you the tools to succeed or fail," and if you stumble, I am here to provide a compass, not an excuse or a get-out-of-jail-free card.

In the Wizard of Oz, the Wizard tells the Tin Man a heart is not measured by how much you love, but how much you are loved by others. Look at this place. And you know, she’s taking attendance!

Every phone conversation with my mother began..hi..it’s me..hang on.i got a call…hello?? No mom..it’s me.. oh..ok..hang on.. click.click .hello? Yeah mom..it’s still me..ok,honey.one sec..click..i think I lost Terry..Terry???..NO Mom..it’s still Barry……ok…I never figured out how this f$%king thing worked.

Last week, I was talking to my mom and she asked if I was calling from my car because she hates when I talk on the phone while driving. I said..geez.you’re a pain in the ass. She said..i’m still your mother….I said..I’m 52..she paused and said..you’re 52??gee. I must be older than I thought!

She loved her cigarettes almost as much as she loved all of us here today!! I was sure the Marlboro Man was my real father.

My house was full of laughs.. love and as most of you, a lot of antique crap and lladros. The Metropolitan Museum couldn’t hold a candle to The Lee Kluger Collection.

They say part of life is death. I guess I am tired of taking out my black suit…for my dad, for my mom and for my daughter, Erica.

I am tired of missing Artie, George, Mack, Hank, Henry, Ida, Phil, Hilda, Izzie, and everyone else.

But That is what they call the lifecycle. But it doesn’t mean we have to like it. But we do have to live with it and learn from it and grow and love more deeply from it.

John Lennon said “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”

But I think Lennon’s songwriting partner Paul McCartney said it best: ”And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.”

My mom was real. She spoke the plain truth and she didn’t care what people thought. They knew she was a friend for life. She wasn’t just my mother. she was my best friend.

Carlton Fisk, a major league ball player for more than two decades summed up what he wanted in his life. My mom played tennis, not baseball but the sentiment is the same.

I don't want fifteen minutes of fame.

I want a life.

I don't want to be a flash in the pan.

I want a career.

I don't want to grab all I can.

I want to selectively choose the best.

I don't want to sell a company.

I want to build one.

I don't want to date a model.

O.K., so I do want to date a model.

Sue me.

But the rest of my goals are long term.

The result of day-to-day determination.

I stay steady.

I redefine the word consistency.

Along the way there will surely be

moments of brilliance.

I am, after all, me.

But the moments will add up to something greater.

A record of excellence.

A plaque in a hall.

My name on a sandwich.

A family that's a team.

I'll never look back with regret.

I will always believe in the ideal.

I hope to be remembered, not recalled.

And I hope to make a difference.

My mom had a life, not a career. She is remembered, not recalled and boy, did she make a difference.

We got to ride the Lee Train..It was a helluva ride. It stopped everywhere. And it picked up passengers along the way.Me, you, you and YOU.

And Somewhere, the ride continues and I am sure, that if there’s a place you go next, my mom is bumming a smoke, dad is flipping the channels, and my daughter, Erica is loving her grandma, as she used to say..”oodles and oodles of Chinese noodles.”

We all become better people for those we let touch us and come into our lives. She brought me and all of us, into hers and for that, I will be forever grateful.