“So you also have a statue of your mother and kneel before it to pray? ...etc.”
It is presumptuous to make assumptions.
Anyway, people with deceased mothers often use pictures, go to their graves, etc. to remind themselves of their mothers. They may even kneel at a gravestone. They are talking with, thinking about and feeling love for this person. This is not inordinate affection - this is normal affection.
Catholics are reacting the same way - we use statues to remind us of Mary, we do not pray TO Mary - we talk to her, love her, ask her for her intercession and generally have a relationship with her because she is alive in Christ. Worship occurs in the eucharist where we worship Christ. Because we have the eucharist, we are free to love the saints, because the worship of Christ in the eucharist is exclusive.
Key word: “TO”
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p4s1c2a2.htm
2675 Beginning with Mary’s unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their prayer to the holy Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ manifested in his mysteries. In countless hymns and antiphons expressing this prayer, two movements usually alternate with one another: the first “magnifies” the Lord for the “great things” he did for his lowly servant and through her for all human beings29 the second entrusts the supplications and praises of the children of God to the Mother of Jesus, because she now knows the humanity which, in her, the Son of God espoused.
Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.
Matthew 6:9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
I can’t seem to find any reference or instructions to pray or even talk to those who have passed from this life.