Mom Raz 1926-2016

Pakinson''s Wake Corporation would like to print a correction regarding the result of the arm wrestle between the late Mom Raz and my brother " The Therapist". The corporation would like to sincerely apologize for any embarrassment the mistake may have caused. Off the record this blogger would like to add "Hell hath no fury like a therapist spurned."  I'm not sure if I nicked the ego or the superego Regardless, What kind of grown man calls the press to make a correction to the results of a private family event depriving his 90 year old mother post-humously of one of the final victories of her l remaining days..


Any resemblance of this blog entry to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely intentional. Most of it is absolutely true. Some events could have happened, with the balance being Trumped up BS.. You should be aware that the autor is on certain Parkinson's medications whose main side effect is extremely vivid dreams. author may wake up from said vivid dreams not sure if he he was simply mentally rehashing old memories, or dreaming up noveau events, a.k.a. crafting a new blog entry.

 My writing regularly elicits a wild and wholly range of responses. Some critics suggest that I have single-handedly created a new genre called NON-FACTion. While others suggest that the genre might be more aptly referred to as "Pulp Fiction", because that is what the plot looks like after I get a hold of it.  A more credible  journalist proclaimed, "I have seen the future of "fake news" and  it's name is Blair Rasmussen". Yet another offered: Life in Parkinsons Wake: More hyperbole than a Trump rally.

Having read that, you be surprised to hear that I received countless requests from well-intentioned readers pleading with me to find a ghostwriter to write the entry honouring my late mother, m a.k.a. Mom Raz.  Heeding   their concerns I penned countless  drafts most of them in a more eulogistic,   obituarial tone, it's just not me. It's just that, you know, while  the words were as incisive, as hard-hitting as my usual fare. I just didn't feel the Seussian dopamine rush that my body craves. It was like the time I went upstairs to put on a pair of shorts - but I mistakenly put on a pair of my wife's capris. You know they were close. They felt like shorts. They looked like shorts. But there was just something not right.

I pondered my dilemma. The one person really mattered was not here. Of course, when I had to do was to think like mom. Then it came to me, "Mom would never make me wear capris! Mom might make me wear  a pair of thick, extremely feminine mauve cords, but never capris.  (I think they had been my sisters. Mom. said that mens and womans were the same and nobody would know - but of course the boys did and and shouted down the hall that they could see my panty lines.  I believe that Mom would want me to write in my natural voice MY voice and in the style that has helped me cope with Parkinson's all these years.

While it would be a stretch to say my mother and I shared the same sense of humour, I do know for sure that she saw the value in my blog. She did not necessarily always appreciate the content but she most definitely had an appreciation for what my blog represented: my conscious decision to attack Parkinsons proactively, actively, and always, with a smile. She understood that my nonsensical commentary on the neurological crap that made no sense to me was a crucial component of the way I coped with my disease.

Indeed, Mom always respected my commitment  to seek the truth with any of the storylines we have run. so I have no doubt that she would have accepted the inherent risk of disturbing some skeletons that might come with putting her name in the limelight again.

Mom Raz, who possessed a tremendous  ecapacity for love, sacrifice and devotion to family, also had an evil, nefarious,  dark mischevious side.

She was willing to do just about anything for her family -- and her family themselves were not immune to her schemes of fraud and deception. Mom Raz presided over one of longest-runnng "pay-fo-play" favorite son schemes ever. It is said that even Ponzi master Bernie Madoff marvelled at how Mom Raz kept this scheme alive decade after decade.

Mom inflects yet another beating on the
social work profession taking down
the therapist.

This game netted her hundreds of orchids, gettaways at vacation properties all over BC, leaving players so wound up so tight, that they would get on the next flight for the tiara clad matriarch if summoned. In a bedside testimony to this blogger Mom Raz asserted. that the scheme was to acheieve the ultimate goal of family unity. I think she achieved this as in her final few years of need every single boy in the family was there to support her when needed. I am so proud of all of them for that. Her legacy will certainly be at risk if the family cannot substantiate this claim.

Not all of her scams were conducted on the scale of the favourite son  scam.
One of her most successful is the timeless Cry Wolf scam. This is illustrated by the above photo  an obviously ailing Mom Raz. Her boys were contacted and told that Mom was ailing an it would be a good idea to come out "just in case". A you can see from the photo Mom managed to pull through thanks to  concentrated dose of "son therapy

Not even her daughter-in-law's could escape her deception. Whenever asked by a son  for a recipe from the Mom Raz Classic Collection, she would. routinely copy it  out longhand carefully leaving out a single, though crucial (knowing her son would use it in a culinary disaster - while the daughter-in-law would bask in victory of her own recipe). Her explanation? "I did it for my daughter-in-laws" you know to take the pressure off. You know, to level the playing field."Again, this seems to be yet another scam that has all the hallmark of a Mom Raz scam - The ultimate benefciaries was her family. 

Looking forward, I cannot replace my mom. However, I do need someone to take up some of  her duties. I haven't settled on a job title yet - but you can count on it reflecting the duties of the following:  spiritual Guide,  Fan Club President, Son Whisperer. your specific duties may include some or all of the following tasks: you will react to a new blog entry (regardless of how trashy it maybe) as if it is prize-worthy, and that I am his second coming of Hemingway. You agree to react to any accomplishments I may communicate to you, as if I have split the atom, or  invented Penicillin. Finally, you will posess an Amazing Kreskin-like ability to read me like a cheap  paperback.

In Part 1 You have seen the worst some might say the best) of Mom Raz. I figure , that in  order to appreciate the light, you need to experience the darkness. In part Two, I will  describe the incredible legacy my mom has left me

Coming up:Part 2 "The Gift"