In a outpatient medical procedure my friend will lose the most physical connection to his mother.  (Where’s Freud when he’s needed?)

It’s aptly named because we know exactly where it resides above our belts and on our bellies.  “Femur” doesn’t provide a clue about its location.  The belly button is the necessary nourishment that brought us into life and after birth it represents the first of many cuts throughout life – like leaving home after college, that second mortgage request, the short (2 years) return home after the divorce, babysitting the kids while he starts dating again and the yearly “Mother’s Day” cards which could have been the same card each year, “You’re the One, Mom!”

How many cuts can a mother have with her child?  Depends on the mother and depends on the child.  (Just watch the movie “Terms of Endearment” or “Mother Dearest” and you’ll understand.)

Truly a relationship second to none is the one between mother and child.  She is gravity (Mother Earth) and every other occupation she assumes for the benefit of her child.  Psychologists say that a mother can never leave her child, it is the child who needs to leave the mother in order to become an individual, an adult.

The belly button served its purpose at birth and its present purpose of collecting lint.  What is left now is motherly memories.  Isn’t that what lint is, bits and pieces of life gathered together in the most intimate and united of ways.  The belly button.  We all have one.  Adam didn’t have one and on Thursday my friend will lose his.