There are other wonderful memories of my mother that drift through my mind. One, that I remember well is the magical way she had of making me feel better when I had a cold or the flu. Only my mother had the "magic" of correctly applying Vick's Vap-O-Rub on my chest to make it all better. I can actually smell that stuff now as I write this.

Now, as a parent myself, I marvel at how my mother raised three children on her own, without a husband or partner. Financially and emotionally, it must have been an incredible burden. What the Japanese say is indeed true, "By the time we come to appreciate our parents, they are not." Thankfully for me, my mother is still around, and continues to give me the benefit of her wisdom. This leads me to something else that I have discovered. It seems quite apparent that the older I get, the smarter my mother has become. When I was a teenager, she was really uninformed about the world. Somehow, with age, she has really become quite wise about a great many things.

A friend of mine. who is transgendered, told me a story that I want to share with you which illustrates just how a mother's intelligence increases with time.

My friend, let's call him "Jim", is now in his forties. Jim's femme persona is Jessica. Finally, after all these years, Jim had the feeling that his mother knew about his crossdressing. There had been "hints" across the years. Jim remembers her mother occasionally calling his Hanes underwear "panties." Yet, at the time, Jim gave no thought to the veiled reference.

Thanks, in part, to a disgruntled ex-wife, Jim was quite sure that his mother had been told about Jessica's existence. He was quite sure that the revelation had not been done in the best of taste and that the crossdressing had been described as disgusting and perverted. Since his former spouse had promised to make sure that everyone, including his family knew about Jessica, he had no reason to doubt she would follow through on the threat. Yet, Jim's mother never directly mentioned a word about it.

During telephone conversations, Jim was sure that his mother knew all about his crossdressing, but there just never seemed to be the right moment" to bring the subject out into the open. As a result, he continued to treat it as a secret, though, in his heart, he felt that it was something that was known, and simply not talked about.

Last year. Jim's life changed dramatically. Not only was he living as Jessica each weekend, but his parents had retired. That meant they would, most likely, be driving through town "unannounced." This posed a potential problem and Jim thought that it was time to clear the air, especially with his mother. He wasn't quite sure how his father would take the news, but he felt his "mom" would understand.

Jim took some vacation and went to visit his parents. While his dad was out running some errand, Jim asked his mother if they could sit down together, have a cup of coffee and talk. He began the discussion by saying that he had always liked different things than most of the guys he went to school with. Jim went on to talk about how he was just never really interested in sports, and really enjoyed helping cut in the kitchen when he was growing up.

Jim's mother asked what the point of all of this was. He hesitated for a few moments and, after gathering all of the courage he could muster, said, Mom, did you ever notice that some of your lingerie disappeared and that I kept it in a box in the back of my closet?"

Jim's mom, took a sip of her coffee and without even so much as a blink, replied, Did you ever notice that it was always washed and folded?"

Maybe our secret isn't quite as secret as we think. And maybe, just maybe, our mothers have really become a great deal smarter as we've gotten older. I know mine has. Thanks mom, for everything. Especially for the things you never said.