Mom, I know your name isn’t ‘mom’!
By: Shamontiel L. Vaughn
Tags: Grandparents, Mothers, Motherhood, Funny Story, Family

Mom, I know your name isn’t ‘mom’!

The reason my grandfather wouldn’t pay his parking ticket

Photo credit: Sai De Silva/Unsplash

My grandfather got a speeding ticket. That sentence isn’t particularly funny, but the way my mother tells the story of why he got the ticket amused me. When he was pulled over for speeding on the highway, the cop asked him, “Why were you going so fast?” And my grandfather (according to my mother) said with his utmost don’t-ask-me-dumb-questions tone, “I’m going to see my granddaughter.”

According to her, he looked at the cop like he should’ve handed him his license back immediately and apologized. Clearly, that cop had no love for their duo visit to see me in undergrad and gave him a ticket anyway. (My grandfather balled it up and threw it in the backseat. I have absolutely no idea if he ever paid it. I just know my grandfather told me on several occasions, “I already went to war and I already served in the army. I’m not snoring through anybody’s jury duty and I don’t care about speeding tickets. Let ’em send me to jail. They’ll get so tired of me and my medications that they’ll let this old man out.”)

I always hoped he was kidding. (I genuinely cannot tell you if he was, and he passed away several years ago. But this is also a man who couldn’t stop cracking jokes even when he was on hospital medication. If there’s a wisecrack to be made, he has it locked and loaded.) But the story of him and the speeding ticket came to mind today for a different reason.

My parents’ home church is giving away boxes of free food for the months of July and August. I originally opted out of taking the food because I don’t eat meat (one of their usual selections) and thought the pick-up spot was too far, but this particular giveaway was at the Chicago Defender building. Gotta respect Bronzeville doing something good for the community, and the boxes were full of produce and vegetables, too. So off I went to meet her. Two cars parked next to each other, blocking my way up the ramp. I texted her to let her know I was outside, and she responded and asked me to see if I could get past them.

One of the cars blocking my way waved me up after clearly seeing I was trying to head in the direction of the parking lot.

He asked, “Are you here to pick someone up?”

My response, “Nope, I’m here to see Mom.”

Tickled, he responded, “Why is your mom here?”

My response again, “She has food.”

For whatever ridiculous reason, no matter how old some people (read: me) get, we somehow forget that “Mom” has a real name — as in a very grown woman born before us who had a birth name long before she was a mother.

He figured out fairly quickly that I was picking up food donation boxes from her, but I saw the same look in his eyes that I often found in my grandfather’s. Instead of letting me by, he yelled across the parking lot, “Whose daughter is this? Will Mom please raise your hand?”

And here comes my 5'1 mother waving her arms in the air going, “That’s me! That’s me!” I almost lost control of the steering wheel from watching this play out.

I could’ve easily explained that I was here to see [insert mother’s full name], who is a volunteer for [insert group] and asked me to pick up a box of free produce and vegetables. But nope, somehow all 38 years of me converted to the small child who is lost in the grocery store: “I’m here to see Mom.”

If only my grandfather had been caught speeding near campus, maybe the cop would’ve found his, “I’m going to see my granddaughter” more amusing. I, of course, can guarantee that anyone yelling out, “Whose grandfather is this?” would’ve surely made me wave. I’d just know that no one else’s grandfather would get into this predicament but him (and apparently me).

While there are some things you don’t know for sure, moms know when their kids are calling them and granddaughters know when their grandfathers are flying down the highway to see them. Although we all have names, I suspect it warms our hearts to be known as more than just the top line on our birth certificates.