There's an old Jewish saying that I find very apropos today: “God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.”

Makes you feel warm inside.

There's an even older proverb first said by the mother of Moses as he went to Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments: “You’ve got time to climb a mountain, but you can't make time to visit or even call?”

I understand the first one. I can really relate to the second. 

With apologies to Mother Moses, my mom was the real queen of making a point. Any point.

Whenever Roz Lewis felt slighted, she would make this subtle observation:

“If you can't find time to see me when I'm alive, don't bother coming to see me when I'm dead.”

Pretty clear, huh?

Some of you might consider it a bit odd for me to think about death, especially on Mother's Day. 

Only, I don't think of it as some morbid remembrance of my mom, who passed away about a month before Mother’s Day in 2008. Instead, it's a reminder that whether she was praising or scolding us, Roz Lewis always had a quotable one liner that came from her heart. It was her best weapon to make sure her three sons stayed out of trouble, and it worked. 

Her Rozzie-isms were legendary, but not Yogi Berra legendary, where it might take you a few minutes to unscramble what she was trying to say. We always knew what mom said, and what she meant. Some I haven't heard in more than 50 years, others she shared with my own boys as they were growing up.

I bet many of your moms have come out with similar Rozzie-isms. They're universal:

• Cry, and I'll give you something to cry about.
• Do I look like your maid? 
• Don't forget to give me a dummy call so I know you made it okay. 
• Because I said so.
• Don't sit so close to the television. It will ruin your eyes. 
• Go play in traffic.
• Did you brush? Let me smell your breath.
• Yours is not the reason why yours is but to do or die.
• Shut the lights. I'm not supporting Con Edison.
• Make that face, and it'll stay that way.
• Who died and made you boss?
• You've got as many excuses as Carter has liver pills.
• You're the oldest. You should know better.
• Do as I say - not as I do.
• Close the door - we don't live in a barn.
• What do you have to say? Did I tell you to talk?
• You'll grow into it.
• Do I look like I'm made out of money?
• Money doesn't grow on trees.
• You are not leaving this table until you finish.
• Say it again, and I'll wash your mouth out with soap.
• I'm not a taxi service.
• I saw that. I have eyes in the back of my head.
• If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?
• Pick up your room. We don't live in a pigsty.
• Leave it alone. That's for company.
• You're not going to be happy until you break it.
• This isn't a restaurant. You eat what I serve.
• You will eat it and you will like it.
• What part of no don't you understand?
• And my favorite Rozzie-ism:
• I wouldn't trade you for all the tea in China.

 Happy Mother's Day to my mom and all the moms!