Try Googling Your Mother's Name or Your Father's Name

This week, for the first time that I can recall, I pursued a Google search on the Internet using my Mother's married name and the first letter of her maiden name as her middle initial.

Much to my surprise, the third item that appeared on the screen was a citation to a 1951 "Yosemite Nature Notes" scientific article about Yosemite National Park --- an article in which Mother was specifically cited in an "Editor's Note" at the end of that article as having verified information contained in that article.

The article noted that Mother made that accuracy-verification on behalf of the Herbarium of her public-university employer at that time, the University of California at Berkeley.

When I recently discovered that article on the Internet, I wished that I had done that Google search in the early 1990s or 1980s, when Mother was still alive and fully alert.

It would have made a very nice present to Mother had I printed out that article and then handed it to her or mailed it to her.

That belated insight on my part has also prompted me to reflect on some of the many various ways in which I could have done more for my biological mother during her lifetime.

(1) I could have specifically praised Mother in a variety of ways on more occasions.
I could have commented on her great talent at getting along well with a wide variety of people. I could have praised Mother for her very gracious and friendly and very polite style toward nearly everyone who made a phone call to Mother's and Father's home. I could have praised Mother for the delicious German-style Sauer Braten and Swedish Meatballs and Rice Pilaf, among other dishes, that she very diligently prepared for herself and her family on a year-round basis in the 1970s.

(2) I could have purchased for her a photo-illustrated guidebook to the greatest nature trails for hiking outdoors in the United States and Canada. I don't believe that Mother ever owned a book that type, but she delighted in hiking outdoors and admiring the plants and wildlife. It often seemed, in fact, that Mother was at her happiest outdoors amid the flora and fauna, including when she and her husband and family were on a camping trip exploring scenic western states of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Texas, and California.

(3) I could have asked Mother in the 1970s, for instance, which foreign nation she most would like to visit.
I don't remember asking her that specific question. If I did ask her that question, I failed to then find a way to help Mother have the opportunity to visit that favorite foreign nation of hers. I don't know for sure whether Mother would have cited Scotland, England, Ireland, Australia, Canada, or Germany as the foreign nation she most wanted to visit. Mother was half-English and half-German in ancestry.

(4) I could have found a guidebook to each of the political-theme and government-theme museums of English-speaking nations. I could then have asked Mother which of those museums appealed to her the most. She was very keen on politics and government, and would have appreciated the opportunity to reflect on which was her favorite of the political and government-theme museums she hadn't yet visited.

(5) I could have pursued research to find out whether the League of Women Voters, a favorite non-profit organization of Mother's for many years, or her own cited religious denomination, a religion based in Massachusetts, owned a historical museum that Mother might have wanted to visit. It is also likely that Mother would have appreciated the opportunity to visit and tour the "mecca", or headquarters city, of her own cited religious denomination---that city, for herself, having been Boston, Mass.

(6) I could have pursued some research to find out if there were any annual contests for crossword puzzle hobbyists that appealed to Mother. If so, possibly Mother might have enjoyed attending a crossword puzzle contest and competing at it. Otherwise, Mother might have enjoyed attending a Crossword Puzzle Hobbyists Fair or exhibit or convention of some type.

(7) I could have pursued research to find out if there was any organization for individuals with in-depth knowledge of botanical mushrooms.
Father had told me several times in the 1970s or 1960s that Mother had particularly excelled in the study of mushrooms and lichens during her prior days as a herbarium staff member at The University of California at Berkeley. Despite this, I never sensed that any professional scientific organization serving mushroom experts and mushroom devotees ever sent any literature to Mother or invited her to attend any of its annual conventions.

(8) I could have pursued more research aimed at offering Mother an opportunity to actually speak with or receive signed photographs from each of the various professional journalists and political leaders whom Mother admired the most.

They included Jim Lehrer of the "McNeil-Lehrer Report" (right name) of the 1970as and 1980s that was sponsored on television by the Public Broadcasting System; Walter Cronkite of CBS Evening News; Jimmy Fidler, the kindly meteorologist of Channel 7 CBS station in Austin, Texas, in the 1970s; Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota; and a male environmentally-minded U.S. Senator from Oregon whom Mother particularly admired in the 1970s.

As it turned out, I did succeed at persuading Jim Lehrer to mail to Mother a signed photograph of himself in the 1980s or 1990s---and Mother was thrilled and elated by that particular present. In fact, Mother posted that signed photograph of Jim Lehrer on the wall a few feet from the miniature television set situated on a counter in her kitchen where Mother devotedly watched Jim Lehrer's news-reportage and news-analysis programs over a multi-decade period.

I'm not so proud, though, of a Greek cookbook that I gave Mother as a Christmas present in the 1970s. Mother had not told me at the time that she loved Greek cuisine.

I had purchased that cookbook because I myself love Greek cooking and I myself had collected Greek postage stamps for several years of my youth. The inscription I hastily wrote inside that Greek cookbook present to Mother, "Hoping that you will incorporate this in the McMillan family cuisine," has since reminded me of an important point.

It's best to purchase or make a Christmas present for another person that matches his or her actually stated or conveyed keen affinities of the present. It's also best, of course, to take the time to write out a thoughtful and affectionate and fully empathetic message accompanying a Christmas present to one's own mother or father.