ONCE AGAIN, MOTHER’S DAY is right around the corner.  Each year, I expect my son, Josh, to call…on Friday…and ask, “Mom, what do you want me to give you for Mother’s Day?”

And, as usual, I will say, “Oh, I don’t know.  What about a gift card to Barnes & Noble?”

This conversation has occurred each year since he outgrew the previous conversation that went something like this:  “Let’s go to the Ranger’s game on Mother’s Day weekend so that I can get you a free bag, Mom.”  I willingly went with him because even though I detest sitting in a hot baseball stadium all afternoon, it was fun listening to him discuss each player as he came up to bat.  I’m still amazed at his ability to read and retain their stats.  One year, all he wanted for his birthday was the Encyclopedia of Baseball.  I remember that during all of our car trips when he was a young boy, he would open his encyclopedia and  from the back seat the quiz would begin.   I was quizzed about who hit the most homeruns in a particular season, who played in both leagues during his career, who played on the same team as his father, and the stats and their accompanying questions would go on and on for mile after mile. Of course, he would become exasperated at my answer:  Babe Ruth, no matter what the question happened to be.  He was convinced that I was a baseball idiot. What he didn’t understand was that he was the only baseball player I knew  and loved and whom I enjoyed watching.

I had always read books to him from the moment that he could sit still and listen. I would make up stories, and in them, he was always the main character and, of course, the hero.  Despite my efforts to develop his literacy skills, for several years the baseball encyclopedia and his baseball card collection reigned.  I worried that he would never enjoy reading anything if it didn’t include statistics.  Ever hopeful, though, his Dad held firm and insisted that those stats told a story that only a child whose mother had instilled a love for reading could understand.

Then, when he reached the ninth grade and the SAT for college admission was looming, I decided he needed to read something besides his baseball encyclopedia and the backs of his baseball cards or perhaps the biography of his favorite baseball player of the past.  But I wanted him to read something interesting, something that would include words from the SAT, and something we could enjoy discussing.  I made a deal with him, “Son, if you read these books, the ones in which I’ve highlighted some of the words, you could possibly score high on the SAT when you’re a sophomore.  Then, you wouldn’t have to worry about the test for the rest of your high school years.”

He thought about that for awhile and then asked what the books were about.  I assured him that they were good.  They happened to be the McNally series of books by Lawrence Sanders.  He began to read and fell in love with a good mystery.  His love of reading a good mystery has continued.  For years, I kept a notebook listing the titles by author of the books he and I both read.

Even though he is grown and gone, we still enjoy discussing a good mystery, so this year, I wrote one for him.  It’s a Christian mystery entitled The Mah Jongg Murders.  The story takes place in a small gated community in East Texas.  In the story, the leading lady epitomizes the mother who wants her son and the boy she reared to stay safe as she and they work diligently to solve the murders of two innocent women.  One question remains, though:  Were the women innocent?

So, if you are in a quandary about what to buy your mother for her special day, go to Amazon.com  and select The Mah Jongg Murders by Linda Pirtle.  I think your mother will enjoy it.

Please click the book cover to read more about The Mah Jongg Murders on Amazon.