Three cheers, and 10 songs, for mother

By Sean Daly, Times Pop Music Critic
In print: Sunday, May 11, 2008

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A few years ago, I took an awful cruise, on a dented SpaghettiOs can of a ship, with my family. This included my mother, the Diplomat.

Now, the Diplomat has more friends than anyone I know, a tribute to her pathological ability to treat everyone like a friend. A smile, a joke, a hug: My 66-year-old mom doles 'em out like free doughnuts. She wants everybody to have a good time on her watch, especially on horrific cruises.

It was brutal, too. Luggage was lost, the food was salmonellic, everyone was on edge. So the Diplomat got the idea that in order to galvanize the masses, her only child, her 30-something son, should enter every ridiculous contest on the lido deck. You know, fire up the troops, make the best of a bad situation. First up, she decided, the 3-on-3 water basketball tournament.

"Come on, Mom. No way. Can't I just sit here and read?"

"Read? On a cruise?! Get in that pool and play basketball!”

I was teamed up with a little chubby kid who couldn't swim and a skinny kid who was approximately 2 feet 6. The pool, unfortunately, was 6 feet deep.

In the first round, my pathetic squad drew a team of German brothers — triplets, no less — each of whom was the thickness of Lou Ferrigno. They were tall, blond, built. They swam like Mark Spitz on Red Bull.

Within seconds, the skinny kid was drowning, the fat one was clinging for his life and Gigantor & Co. was draining 3-pointers and launching themselves off my love handles for glorious Teutonic dunks. Total nightmare.

But a funny thing happened on the road to full-blown emasculation. The crowd, and my family, once so sad, so miserable, finally started to have fun. And who was leading the Germanic Cheerleading Team, who was charming the Ferrigno Triplets' proud parents?

Yep, the Diplomat.

"Mom, what are you doing?!" I screamed, spitting out a chokeful of water. "You're supposed to be rooting for me! I'm your son!"

"But they're so beautiful!" the Diplomat cheered. "Yay! Go! Go!"

So as my thighs were burning from treading water, as I contemplated barfing up the pina colada I unwisely gulped as a pregame motivator, the worst cruise in the world became merely cruddy. The Diplomat, a proud smile on her face, had done it once again.

• • •

A few months ago, the Diplomat called to say she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. I flew up to Baltimore for the operation. I'll never forget standing in the waiting room and phoning her epic list of friends — some close, some she picked up along the way — to let them know she was fine. If there had been a German mother of triplets on there, I wouldn't have been surprised.

I'm pleased to say that, after radiation treatment, my mother is doing great. So here's a bouquet of songs for my mom, and all moms, on this special day. The Diplomat isn't always easy. But I wouldn't be half the water basketball player without her.