I miss my mom. Here’s who she was
“Let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.” — Kahlil Gibran
My mom was tough. She didn’t take shit from nobody. And yet whenever anyone speaks of her or remembers her, what they usually recall is her overflowing kindness and compassion and the remarkable depth of grace and character she displayed for every moment of her 40 beautiful years on earth.
When she was pregnant with one of my four brothers she went for a late-night swim across a lake in Minnesota, just for the hell of it. I guess it’s more fun when you’re swimming for two. Before she got married she snuck away from the Catholic church and ran down to the beach in her wedding dress to have a cigarette with her brothers.
She was kind of a badass.
When she argued, she was never mean. She never belittled anyone, never made anyone feel small. But she never backed down either and, like a lioness, let it be known with quiet confidence that you’d better not mess with her or she’d be messing back.
When she quit smoking before I was born she wrote that she did so because she dreamed of a future in which she got to spend as much time as possible with her children.
“Someday when we have our kids they will know that I did it for them so I could live longer and watch them grow.”
She led by example, always tried to make people feel welcome and included. She was patient and encouraging and thoughtful; she was smart and determined and could literally do anything she put her mind to. When she went back to college she got straight A’s while running a business office and managing a household where bloody lips and skinned knees and muddy shoes were daily — if not hourly — occurrences.
She was thoughtful. She wrote warm letters and stayed up late talking with friends. She practiced calligraphy. She collected dolls. She drank but never much. She played the guitar and could sing — oh God, could she sing! — and somehow managed to cook a different dinner every night of the week.
She was cool. She liked to listen to Joan Baez and Jim Croce and read poetry by Kahlil Gibran and Shel Silverstein.
She was adventurous. When she graduated from high school she set out on a trip across Europe, where she kept a journal in which she kept dried daisies she picked at the base of the Eiffel Tower. On the plane ride to Paris she sat next to a Japanese businessman and instead of getting frustrated with his English, sat there and patiently tried to carry on a conversation.
“I can’t understand him but that’s what makes it so fun. I just have to try a little harder to understand,” she wrote.
Of all her qualities, it was probably that empathy that was her greatest strength. She had a way of making people feel like she not only heard them, but truly understood what was in their heart.
When she got sick with cancer she was never scared for herself. She never showed how much pain she was in, and even when it was obvious that shit was ripping her apart from the inside she was as fearless as she’d ever been. I think the only thing that ever scared her was the idea of not being there for her family — especially her boys — who were her everything.
She loved everyone she knew with an intensity and purity that you can’t imagine, and truly the only thing she ever wanted was to love and be loved — which is exactly what she did every day of her life.
After she died the pain was so intense that even today I still have a hard time talking about her, and it’s one of the great regrets of my life that I don’t share more memories of her. So today on Mother’s Day I’m writing this in order to share with you a few of the things about my mom that made her the most amazing person I’ve ever known.
Happy Mother’s Day everyone
