My mother has always been one for holistic approaches.

She understands and believes in reflexology, acupuncture, aromatherapy, and of course, herbal remedies.

Don’t worry. My brother and I did get vaccinatedas child against the pox and the plague, but for everything else, there was a natural cure.

Because of that. I have a hard time, to this day, swallowing orange juice, thanks to some cod liver oil creation that I still don’t know what malady it was supposed to cure. (According to Google, arthritis. Go figure.)

Mom also believes that vitamins can cure the world, and I don’t dispute that. I believe that vitamins are a great supplement designed to promote overall health. I just think with medical advances and such as they are today, those vitamins and cure-alls shouldn’t taste like dirt.

Case in point – Echinacea. One of her favorites, it’s a flower that in its pill form, is traditionally used for colds, flu and other infections. It, you guessed it, tastes like dirt, but she swears by it.

We’d stopped by her house Sunday afternoon after a weekend at the beach. I’d been fighting a sinus/cold/mutantvirus and its designs to kill me since Friday.

When we stopped by for coffee, my stuffy nose and watery eyes were two of the things she zeroed in on first.

“Are you sick?” she asked, and like any child, I fibbed, because it doesn’t matter if you’re 3 or 36, show up sick at Mom’s house and you’re in for some kind of dosing.

“No ma’am. I’ll be fine. Staying in a hotel, you know.”

Then, she said the words that any child whose mother doesn’t use chicken soup to cure ills dreads. “I’ve got something in here that will help.”

I shook my head to stop her progress through the living room. I told her I had some Mucinex at home, and I would be OK.

But, like any mom, she wouldn’t hear it.

She marched smartly to the kitchen and stood over the array of bottles. She thumbed a bit, the plastic clinking together as she searched.

“Here you go,” she said, holding a small brown bottle with a rubber dropper at the top. “Frankinsense and myrrh.”

Of all the things she could’ve pulled out of the pile, that wasn’t what I was expecting.

I looked at her with raised eyebrows and said, “Frankinscense and myrrh, huh?”

The response, “If it was good enough for Jesus…”

And who was I to argue?

Well played, Mom. Well played.