TASK #19: QUEEN FOR A DAY
You can choose your friends, but you only have one mother. Max Shulman
It’s right around the corner, gentlemen. That’s right, Mother’s Day is looming.
The one true statement that can be made about any human being is that HE, SHE, IT, THEY, YOU have/had a mother. According to common knowledge and reinforced by Mother’s Day cards, MOTHER is good natured, MOTHER is selfless, MOTHER is nurturing, MOTHER is kind–the bulwark of the family–sensible, sweet, protective, patient and loving.
Mothers are also human beings. At least mine was. She was imperious, testy and judgmental. Her view of parenting was unbending: there is a road, it is narrow, and you will walk down it without straying.
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But mothers are also human beings. At least mine was. She was imperious, testy and judgmental. Her view of parenting was unbending: there is a road, it is narrow, and you will walk down it without straying. And should you stray, or even THINK about straying, there would be hell to pay, and you–not her–would be paying it.
She had rules. Dozens of them. Where things (like shoes) went–and why. What time to get up and what time to go to bed. How to dress and how to eat. God forbid the child that reached for a dinner roll without asking. With blinding speed and unerring accuracy she would stab the offending child’s hand with her dinner fork.
My dad was terrified of her. He had a pack-a-day cigarette habit that ended in one afternoon after she threatened to throw him out of the house if he ever so much as looked at a cigarette, or even at someone else who was smoking.
She had a withering stare. Her weapon of choice, when we did act up, was a old fashioned yardstick that she simply, eloquently, and ominously, called “The Stick”, as in, “hit your sister again and I’ll get the stick…” She kept it on top of the refrigerator.
She was a small person. Maybe 5’3″. A buck ten. She was fussy about her clothes–she liked loud colors, like purple-and her hair was never out of place. She had a weekly hair appointment that she never missed, not even for a funeral.
She’s gone now. She died in 1999. She died the same weekend that my youngest son was born. He popped out on Saturday, she died on Monday.
I loved her. Three reasons:
1) She was as tough as nails.
She got hit by a car when she was in her early 60s. She flew about 20 feet in the air and broke nearly ever bone in her body. She never complained about the pain or the years of physical therapy nor the bad luck that put her in front of that car.
2) My mother believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.
I didn’t want to go to college. She wanted me to go to college. We fought for a solid year. She enrolled my in a college, drove me up to the college and dragged me into a dorm room. I screamed and moaned and cursed at her, but I stayed…and it turned out that college was the good thing.
3) My mother could be tolerant on occasion.
I came home stinking drunk one night when I was visiting from college and I passed out on the floor in front of her–after barfing on her nightgown.
I hated her. Three reasons:
She’s gone now. She died in 1999. She died the same weekend that my youngest son was born. He popped out on Saturday, she died on Monday. I loved her.
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1) She was never wrong.
2) She used to brag to anyone who would listen that she only gained 11 pounds while she was pregnant with me.
I don’t know why exactly, but that really bothered me. Probably because she cared more about the weight than my journey out of her womb.
3) She was vindictive.
Piss her off and you were cut off. And she wasn’t difficult to piss off.
I also miss her. And tonight, at dinner, I’m going to be watching for the errant hand trying to grab a dinner roll.
TASK
Buy a Mother’s Day card or make your own. Then, inside write down the three things you loved about your mother and the three things you hated. Be brutally honest. Then put the card in your notebook.
Photos by Cristian Newman on Unsplash, and courtesy of Joe Doe