My mom is 96, I think. She's bedridden and delusional. That would be her medical diagnosis, though she eats like a football player and she still has moments of striking clarity if I manage to push the right nerve button.

On a recent visit to her Woodside care home, I picked up some of my mom's bills, as I'm the executor of her financial affairs. On one bill, her birth date was listed as April 25, 1911, which means, I guess, that she just turned 97.

But we've always celebrated her birthday Dec. 2, which means she is 96 years, 5 months, 9 days by our calculations. However, this April 25 birth date pops up occasionally, and my mom refuses to discuss the discrepancy.

"You know, Mom, you're such a mystery," I told her two weeks ago. "We don't even know your real birthday."

She got that annoyed look she's always gotten when perturbed.

"I know I'm a mystery," she said, "but I'm from a crazy family."

Perfect clarity. She is from a crazy family. So am I.

My mom and dad are from Poland. They met in San Francisco and were married Dec. 18, 1932. That date we're sure of, but other family details remain, well, a mystery.

My dad, Al Newhouse, died in 1980 at, I think, 83. I wasn't sure of his age either. One day, in my Oakland home, he confided to me, "You know, I'm three years older than your mother thinks I am."

See what I mean, crazy.

Both of my grandfathers abandoned their families in Poland, came to America, remarried and started

new families. My mom showed up one day, crazily, without her stepmother and stepsister knowing she was coming.

My parents didn't lead easy lives after their Depression marriage, but it was hardest on my mom. My father was a good man, a loving man, but he was an alcoholic. We never knew — my mom and the three kids — when he would come home drunk to our Menlo Park home from his used clothing store in Palo Alto.

But when he did, he was a changed man, verbally abusive, mainly toward his wife. My mom put up with that craziness for the bulk of their 47-year marriage. They stayed together "for the kids," which most couples in similar situations did back then, when divorces were uncommon.

My mom had other crises to endure. Her mother and sister — my grandmother and aunt — were Holocaust victims. My mom could only assume as much because she never found out otherwise, as hard as she tried.

Then in 1970, my brother Bobby died after a long struggle with cancer. He was only 30, leaving behind a wife and an adopted son. His death led, slowly, to my father's own passing. But my mom lived on. She suffered a nervous breakdown when Bobby was diagnosed with lymphoma, and her baby's passing hasn't ever left her.

She talks about "the children" even now. She pictures us as little kids and she has moments when Bobby and Al are alive along with her father. I try not to change her mind because if it makes her happy to think this way, she deserves that pleasure.

More craziness? My mom's birth name is Sonja, but my father quickly "Americanized" her as Sally. Hardly anyone knows her as Sonja, but I asked her a few months ago which name she preferred.

"Sonja," she said. "It's more becoming."

A moment of clarity. Speaking of which, I interviewed my mom about her life three years ago, before the dementia took control. She seemed to have total recall, which gave me an idea.

"Mom," I nudged her last month, "what if I wrote a book about your life?"

She looked up at me from her pillow — still a looker at 96 or 97 — with a surprising response.

"It wouldn't hurt anybody," she said.

Love you, Mom. Happy Mother's Day.

Dave Newhouse's columns appear Monday, Thursday and Sunday, usually on the Metro page. Know any Good Neighbors? Phone 510-208-6466 or e-mail dnewhouse@bayareanewsgroup.com.