. . . Always a Mom
I am a father. And as a father I know two things for certain. The first is that Father's Day falls on one of the four or five Sundays in June. Which one? I have no idea. The second is that Mother's Day is tomorrow, May 13th, the second Sunday of the month - always has been, always will be.
Why is Mother's Day fused into my brain, while Father's Day (even though I've been in the club for nearly seventeen years) never seems to come into focus? Heck, even the juxstaposition of these Hallmark holidays on our calendar makes plain which is important and which is an afterthought. Even so, why do even us Dads acknowledge that it is the lesser of the two?
Because every dad has a Mom.
Besides being a father, I am also a teacher. For a long stretch of childhood I never thought teachers had lives outside of their jobs. Like me, you might have assumed the same. I now know from experience that students vaguely believe their teachers keep a spartan cot and a hot plate hidden somewhere in the classroom. Between school days, teachers impatiently wait out the intervals until they can continue to exist only for their students. Sound familiar?
And that's exactly how I saw my Mom.
As a little boy, she woke me up in the morning and had breakfast on the table. Every summer day she called my brother and me in for lunch after we had spent hours tramping around the neighboring woods. Each evening we ate together as a family, typically filling up on Minnesota "comfort food" she had seemingly cooked from scratch. Her existence, it seemed to my childhood mind, centered only around us.
And even as the my universe shifted towards friendships and away from family in my teen years, my mom's focus never seemed to waver from motherhood. She attended our games, drove us home from practices, cooked our food, washed our clothes. All of these duties she attended to without complaint (or none that I ever heard) while beginning her own full-time job that she would have for more than twenty-five years.
Throughout my childhood - during the passage of years that can be full of real and imaginary upheaval - my Mom was a perpetual safe haven for me and my brother. Unfortunately, as is often the case, we counted on her so much to simply "be there" that we certainly took that constancy for granted. And, looking back now, I'm sure the "thank yous" were too few and too far between.
A few years ago on Mother's Day I called my Mom and tried to convey to her how much I appreciated what she had done for me and my brother. The words came out right but they seemed too late somehow, as if the opportunity for maximum effect had long since passed and I was simply playing a futile game of "catch up."
The plain truth is - and I fervently hope it is the ultimate compliment - I still see my Mother much the same way I did as a kid. Of course, I know she is a unique individual with her own life story, interests, talents and identity. But when I see her even now in my own middle-age, the same feelings from childhood still - almost unknowingly - wash over me. I feel safe. I feel secure. I feel . . . home.
I know none of us had identical childhoods. And I realize that not all Moms are created equal. So my hope for all of us this Mother's Day is that we can reach back into the corners of our minds and pull out a memory of our Moms that will make us smile and honor her sacrifices.
Why is Mother's Day fused into my brain, while Father's Day (even though I've been in the club for nearly seventeen years) never seems to come into focus? Heck, even the juxstaposition of these Hallmark holidays on our calendar makes plain which is important and which is an afterthought. Even so, why do even us Dads acknowledge that it is the lesser of the two?
Because every dad has a Mom.
Besides being a father, I am also a teacher. For a long stretch of childhood I never thought teachers had lives outside of their jobs. Like me, you might have assumed the same. I now know from experience that students vaguely believe their teachers keep a spartan cot and a hot plate hidden somewhere in the classroom. Between school days, teachers impatiently wait out the intervals until they can continue to exist only for their students. Sound familiar?
And that's exactly how I saw my Mom.
As a little boy, she woke me up in the morning and had breakfast on the table. Every summer day she called my brother and me in for lunch after we had spent hours tramping around the neighboring woods. Each evening we ate together as a family, typically filling up on Minnesota "comfort food" she had seemingly cooked from scratch. Her existence, it seemed to my childhood mind, centered only around us.
And even as the my universe shifted towards friendships and away from family in my teen years, my mom's focus never seemed to waver from motherhood. She attended our games, drove us home from practices, cooked our food, washed our clothes. All of these duties she attended to without complaint (or none that I ever heard) while beginning her own full-time job that she would have for more than twenty-five years.
Throughout my childhood - during the passage of years that can be full of real and imaginary upheaval - my Mom was a perpetual safe haven for me and my brother. Unfortunately, as is often the case, we counted on her so much to simply "be there" that we certainly took that constancy for granted. And, looking back now, I'm sure the "thank yous" were too few and too far between.
A few years ago on Mother's Day I called my Mom and tried to convey to her how much I appreciated what she had done for me and my brother. The words came out right but they seemed too late somehow, as if the opportunity for maximum effect had long since passed and I was simply playing a futile game of "catch up."
The plain truth is - and I fervently hope it is the ultimate compliment - I still see my Mother much the same way I did as a kid. Of course, I know she is a unique individual with her own life story, interests, talents and identity. But when I see her even now in my own middle-age, the same feelings from childhood still - almost unknowingly - wash over me. I feel safe. I feel secure. I feel . . . home.
I know none of us had identical childhoods. And I realize that not all Moms are created equal. So my hope for all of us this Mother's Day is that we can reach back into the corners of our minds and pull out a memory of our Moms that will make us smile and honor her sacrifices.
Happy Mother's Day.
We had identical childhoods! Right down to mom starting a full time job and yet she still seemed to do all the things she did before. I'm sure her world changed dramatically, but mine didn't. Mom magic!
ReplyDeleteMagic indeed! The best ones do it so well we hardly noticed.
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