Friday would have been my mom’s 91st birthday. I tried to draw some church key bottle openers in her memory. [tap the photo below to see it full size)
Purely by coincidence, I pulled out a church key that day and used it to open a bottle of Mexican Coke. It’s the kind of thing I only use maybe once or twice a year; funny that her birthday was the day I ended up using it.
I’ll always associate church key bottle openers with my mom, because she told me to carry them on the train when I was a teenager. “You can use it to defend yourself,” she would say, “and if the cops stop you, you can just tell them that you’re a waitress on your way home from work.” I did love that about her, how she was classy on the surface but a badass inside. It also occurred to me how disturbing it was that this was something she learned as a young woman, riding public transit in the 1950s, and felt the need to pass on to her daughter. I’m relieved to say that I’ve never had to use it for that purpose.
I tried to stamp the date on the drawing, but it came out saying March 60th. We know that’s not an actual day. I tried to fix it and then just made it worse. Mercury is indeed retrograde. Happy International Women’s Day, and happy birthday Ma.
