Mother’s Day, May 2017
I couldn’t call my mom to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day today. I couldn’t buy her a card or go spend the day with her laying in her bed watching HGTV while she told me all the things she was going to do at her own house one day. I couldn’t take her to dinner while she ate painfully slowly and got so fussy when I rushed her. And I couldn’t grin, shake my head, and roll my eyes when she said “I want to enjoy my food…slow like the French do.” All the things I couldn’t do today, I will never be able to do again. This is the seventh Mother’s Day that I couldn't do those things. Each one was just as dreadful as the last, but Patty Rae taught me always to look for the good.
The past couple of years have been good ones for me. I’ve had some of the kinds of experiences that mothers are totally into. Yesterday, I would have walked across the stage to receive my Master’s Degree, totally coerced by my mother, of course, because I don’t have the patience for all that pomp and circumstance. She would have been over the moon--just overwhelmed with pride. I got married recently, and she would have been in awe of the whole thing. She would have nervously smoked cigarettes, said things like “I can’t believe it, man,” and taken blurry cell phone pictures like mothers often do. She would have told me she was proud of my courage despite what many others may feel about the situation. She would have been genuinely happy that I found someone whose love for me is as authentic and real as is possible, and she would have loved Tammy. My mom would have enjoyed coming over—when she could get a ride because she sure wasn’t going to drive—and just marvel at the way I choose to decorate my home. She would tell everyone about how “April has a real nice place in Houston” (the ‘big city’ was like another planet to my mother). Mom would have loved my career choices. “I always knew you were going to be a teacher, April…I knew it. And now look at you.” She would tell everyone I had gotten some kind of fancy promotion a couple of years ago (which I did not, by the way), and that I “won all kinds of awards” (which I also did not, by the way…campus Teacher of the Year award and a nomination for another district thing). In her eyes, I would be very decorated, and she would have looked for me on the front page of the Chronicle, I’m sure.
But that’s the thing about moms—they’re your biggest fans and your greatest champions. When you’re happy, they’re happy. When your heart hurts, theirs just breaks for you. When a little kid draws them a crayon family portrait, they see a Rembrandt. When they have to suffer through elementary school choral club performances, they hear angels singing—well, at least one angel. They suffer through days and hours and months of driving you to practices and sitting at games of sports at which you’re probably mediocre at best. When you accomplish something, even little, almost-nothing somethings, they celebrate it as though you’ve done something Nobel Prize worthy. Your achievements are their achievements because they have loved you longer and harder than any other human ever can or will. You are a piece of them. And eventually, you realize they are a piece of you.
As I sat outside sipping coffee this morning, rather than thinking of all the things I couldn’t do for her or give to her, I thought about all the things my mom gave me. She gave me her melancholy. I have it today especially. She gave me a face that is almost incapable of keeping a neutral expression rather than blatantly displaying the wide range of often erratic and intense emotions that I’m feeling inside, which also came from her. As her daughter, I reflect so many of the qualities that made her special, and even a little crazy. She loved to laugh, joke, cut up, and visit, but she had a tendency to feel things super deeply and become heavy-hearted, sentimental, and nostalgic at the drop of a hat. I inherited that. She was usually in a good mood, but if she was unhappy, scared, sad, or (God forbid) pissed off, you could just see it from a mile away. She had no poker face. I inherited that. She had many creative gifts and talents that I think were just bursting inside her because she couldn't always find an outlet for them. I inherited that. As is the case with most women, the older we get, the more we realize we are just like our mothers. If you are lucky enough to have a mother that is as amazing as mine was, that is not such a bad thing. I often look for words, sentences, paragraphs worthy of my mother's 53 years on this earth. As good as I am with words (thanks to my mother), I just cannot find them. I hope that I am able to show the world the kind of woman she was.
All the things that you do for your mom on Mother’s Day, I couldn’t do today. And I’ll never be able to. It’s a shame, but that’s how it goes. What I would like to do today, every future Mother’s Day ( and certainly wish I would have on the ones that passed while she was here on this earth) is tell her what she means to me and give her thanks for what she gave me–a long list that seems to grow each year as I grow a little wiser. Thank you, mom.
xoarl
