Now I know what you all must be thinking. This post is nearly a week late. I respectfully disagree. Now don’t get me wrong; I really don’t have a problem with the designated Mother’s Day that rolls around every May. The majority of mothers deserve to have a day set aside to celebrate all that they do. Brunch is nice, flowers are nice, cards that other people have written are nice, but when that Sunday is over, is that it? Are we supposed to just wake up on Monday morning and start thinking about Father’s Day? That’s a problem for me and I actually have a name for that problem. Most would call the problem Lois but I call her Mama.
Maybe a part of my problem with the designated Mother’s Day is that I simply don’t know how to handle that day with my own mother. She’s had an issue with that day for a long time now, 27 years actually. That was the day that her and her two sisters picked up my grandmother for a Mother’s Day lunch, only to come back to find that my grandfather had passed away while they were gone. Since I was old enough to really understand what that meant, I’ve never been quite sure if she wanted to even acknowledge that day’s existence. But honestly, as difficult a day as that must be for her, that’s still not the issue that I have. As I’m sure you’ve all figured out by now, the issue that I have is that a Sunday in May is not Mother’s Day to me. EVERY day is Mother’s Day to me.
I know this is a strange quote to throw out in an emotional piece, but Norman Bates says that “A boy’s best friend is his mother” and honestly, I’m completely okay with that. Call me sentimental. Call me a mama’s boy, I really don’t care. All I know is that throughout my life, the one person I knew I could always count on was my mother. From the earliest moments I can remember, she’s done everything in her power to make sure that I was okay. My parents divorced when I was 12 and when he left for a couple of years, I saw her maintain a household and raise three kids on her own and she made it look easy. In reality, it had to be extremely difficult for her. She borrowed money from people; she took out second mortgages; she put herself in debt to make sure that we stayed in our house. She turned down wonderful job opportunities in other cities to make sure that we stayed around our friends. Hell, she even brought Dad back to town just to make sure we didn’t lose that relationship. Then she also had to explain why he was acting the way he was acting because I just couldn’t understand what an addict really was and sat with me as I cried each time she had to tell me he was going back to prison. She never gave up on me when I dropped out of college (twice) and was completely lost in this world. When my first engagement broke up, she was there to ease the pain and tell me that everything was going to be okay and the right woman would come along when I was really ready for it. When I thought I had found that person, she danced the most amazing dance with me at my wedding. She was the first person there in the middle of the night when my twin daughters were born 11 weeks early, just to let me know that they were going to be okay. And in the past year when my marriage fell apart, she was there to soften the blow. I was angry and hurt and instead of yelling at the person I wanted to yell at, I yelled at my mother instead and she just let me go and took it and when I figured out how stupid I was being, she forgave me in an instant. Then a few months later after I watched my dad take his last breath, she came to the hospital and sat in that room with me just so I wasn’t alone.
I think that’s what I’ve come to realize as an adult. I’ve certainly had my share of things to deal with over the years and I handled so many of them in the completely wrong way. I felt alone. I isolated myself from the world in hopes that if I never let anyone in, even my mother, then nobody would know the pain that I was feeling. But she always knew, and whether I knew it or not, I was never alone. She was and is still to this day always watching, always caring for me, always loving me.
Just a little fact: my mother isn’t perfect, but she’s the perfect mother for someone like me and the perfect grandmother for my children and I take so much pride in the fact that I am her son. So to my mother, I love you so much. Happy Mother’s Day Mama. Sunday, today, tomorrow, and every day for the rest of my life.