Skip to main content

My mom...my life bearer


   It is no competition between kids on how they honor their mother best. It is the end result that we honor them. Lately, I have been trying to keep myself from saying, "I am lucky" when I know I should be saying, "I am blessed." So, I am blessed because I have a blessing: my mother.
  When it comes to my mom, my words couldn't guild enough. My words are bleak and grey and completely inadequate. It isn't that they aren't flowery or euphoric to hear, it is that they aren't enough. Let me tell you about my mom...
   My mother married at the age of 20. He was 29. She had her first child, my brother, when she was 24. She had her second child, me, at the age of almost 30. Her husband wasn't the one she always dreamed about in her fantasy life as a young girl. In fact, as much as I love my father, he wasn't the best model of a husband. But, he loved her...and she him. (This is about her btw. ;-) 
   For the next 29 years, my mother raised some damn good kids. Her son was brilliant and her daughter was an entertainment. But, it would be a loss of her son that would push her closer to the edge of perhaps losing all sense of personal identification. However, she fought. She fought hard to get out of the torment that wanted to control her because she knew that she had one more here.
   My mom was stuck. She was stuck with me. The one who is marked by her independence. The one who has a tendency not understand emotional connections. The one who is more of her opposite. However, she fought. She fought hard to break my shell because she knew that the only way for either of us to truly survive the death of her son and my brother was to interlock our souls and become true friends.
   My mom gave me life. But, the more important thing is that she gave me friendship. Life without true friends or someone who will come get you, while you are in the middle of nowhere, with no car, and broken and screaming because of someone else's inability to be kind...that's not living. My mom is my definition of life. She gave it me, but above all: she gave it meaning.

I heard it once said that all kids will think their mother the best at one point in their life...well, for me, my mother is the best at all points.
My mother: my North Star, my compass, my guide through the bog, my one, constant saving grace. I love you, mom--more today than yesterday, more tomorrow than today, more forever and always. -2014
   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A goodbye love letter to you...

  I sat across from my dad at lunch, yesterday, and asked him, "Do you know what tomorrow is?" He said, "Yeah. 1 year." And his eyes grew damp. "I'll never forget walking into that room..." He didn't continue. I didn't ask him to. "I'll never forget the police officer banging on my door at 1130 at night..." I didn't continue. He didn't ask me to.  "This journal was given to me several years ago by my children. I know they wanted me to write down my thoughts to get through the rough times I was going through at the time. I did not start this at that time. Why am I starting it now? Well, I only thought I had been through hell back then, but now I realize I didn't have any idea what heartache was until Aug 15, 2010 -"   This is the beginning of one of my mother's journals. A journal she started a little over a month after Andy died. And she wrote it--to him.  "Dear Mother - Today is the day before Mothe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Arithmetic of Purpose

   By nature, humans will, at one point in their life, ask the question, "For what purpose? Why am I here? What am I meant to do?" Okay, maybe they will ask themselves more than 1 question...but at least around the same theme. "Who am I, and why am I here?" It is built in our very DNA. Growing up, I didn't ask this often. I had a loving family who went with the current. Who I was and why I was here was bound up in my place in my family of 4. I was comfy. I was loved. I was secure. But alas...the question presented itself.   I first asked myself this question walking down the streets of Rome. I was alone, I was 21, and I was lost. I had just finished AmeriCorps and felt like I wanted something, but wasn't sure what that was. I had found my faith, at last, and realized that perhaps I wanted to be a bigger part of the Church collective. I felt meaning to my nothingness. I went home with direction. I graduated from college, finally, and started grad school to be...
Post a Comment
Read more

3000 miles...

      ...and I am exhausted. Just a little over an hour and a half ago, I reached 3000 miles on my trip, and as I sit here in this hotel room, in Fort Stockton, TX, I am realizing how tired I am. Isn't vacation supposed to be refreshing and relaxing? Yet, I feel neither. I feel as though I am running on fumes, like my car was moments ago before I gave her a drink.       I spent that last hour thinking about all the things I have done, all the people I have seen, all the wonderful food I have eaten, and I realize I am so blessed. I have everything I need and all the love and support a person could ask for, and because of that, I am truly blessed.       It took everything in my power to turn on my computer and type this, so this post is uber short. But, I wanted to thank everyone, thus far, who has extended a gracious hand to host me and be there for me in just a manner to show me love. I love each and everyone of you. (I am sure this will no...
Post a Comment
Read more