As I ran out of my house a few nights ago to find my mom alone, in the dark, on the ground, bleeding profusely and calling out my name, the pain hit me like a sucker punch to the stomach. Actually it felt more like I fell out of a 5-story building and survived. Everything hurt. Since the birth of my two kids I have learned that along with the joy of watching them grow up comes the agony of worrying about anything bad happening to them. That agony was suddenly shifted to a parent instead of a child and it was just as frightening. The realization that my parents are mortal had slapped me in the face a couple of years earlier when I learned that my dad had (but survived) prostate cancer. Suddenly it was my mom in peril though.
My mom was 22 years old when she had me which is pretty young by today’s standards. I did not have my first child until I was aged 43. I feel incredibly old but I hope I can bridge the gap somewhat by remaining a kid myself as much as possible. My mom needed to make no such adjustments as she was still practically a kid when she had me, so we are more like friends than parent/child. We look alike and people have mistaken us for brother and sister. My earliest memories in life are of me sitting in the little red-plaid seat on the back of her black bicycle and biking around the lakes in Minneapolis. I was 2 and I remember being scared sh*tless that the bike was going to tip over and me with it, but she never let me fall.
As I have noted in several previous blog entries my parents are responsible for my early and massive love of music. So while she was in town last week visiting from Portland we went to a Fleetwood Mac concert. We ran into a friend of mine at the show and while watching my mom dance she commented that she does NOT look old enough to be my mom. We had great time of course and the band brought the two of us right back to 1975, dancing in our living room to their albums. It also reminded me of the time we went to see Simon & Garfunkel together in the summer of 1983 at Milwaukee County Stadium. I was 17. During the long walk from the car to the stadium my mom suddenly commented: “Now sure would be a good time for a joint.” My jaw dropped and I lamented the fact that I had left my weed at home, never expecting my mom to bring it up.
That in turn reminded me of the time two years later when my parents were temporarily renting a house on a farm while their new house was being built. I came home from college for the summer and decided it would be a good idea to sprinkle a bunch of pot seeds out in the field behind the house. Later that summer my mom casually mentioned to me that my pot plants may be in danger as it looks like a horse had trampled through them. What? She knew about the plants?? She was more concerned about the well-being of the plants than the fact that I was growing pot. The plants were not really ready to be picked, but rather than risk them getting trampled again and/or being discovered my mom said that we should pick them. So that afternoon we went out and harvested all of the plants and she helped me hang them up to dry in the basement. By that time I had quit smoking pot and was just growing the plants for fun, so I ended up giving the weed to an uncle who was in town visiting.
Not only does my mom love gardening and taking care of the countless plants inhabiting her house in Oregon, she cares deeply about all living things. We have always had a wide variety of pets in our house including dogs, cats, guinea pigs, hermit crabs, birds, fish, snakes, turtles, lizards, frogs, and rabbit for a short while. My snakes were always getting loose in the house and it was not uncommon to see my mom walking up the basement steps holding a garter snake saying: “Hey, I found another one of your snakes.” In addition to all of the pets, our house was like a triage center for injured wildlife. Whenever someone in the neighborhood would find an injured chipmunk, squirrel or bird they would bring it over to our house to be nurtured back to health if possible. It was fun and educational growing up surrounded by animals.
In addition to animals, my mom genuinely cares about the welfare of all people…and I mean everybody. She actually mails her letters at the post office instead of just putting them in her mailbox at home because she does not want the mailman to have to carry around the extra weight of one of her letters on his mail route. Once when I was late for soccer practice we were driving down a country road and came upon a girl on the side of the road crying. As a self-absorbed jerky 15-year old I didn’t want to stop but of course my mom did. The girl had fallen off her bike and was hurt so my mom had me put her bike in the trunk and we drove her home. My mom is currently in a volunteer program where she cares for kids and young adults in the penal system. She visits them in jail, listens to them, goes to their hearings and does whatever she can on their behalf. As a nurse she has traveled all over the world caring for sick people, including kids in Kathmandu, Nepal and Mother Teresa’s Center in Calcutta, India.
There are a million examples of her kindness, love of all people and her need to nurture and care for anybody that needs help, but the most dramatic example is the fact that for a time she worked as a pediatric hospice nurse. She took care of terminally ill children and did whatever she could to make their passing less painful for them and their parents. She has held children in her arms as they died. I cannot think of anything in the world sadder or more noble than that.
Most of all though is her love of family. Nothing in the world makes her happier than being with her wide variety of brothers and sisters and their kids at family reunions, or with her own four children whenever she can. She makes each one of us kids feel like we are her favorite and she would do anything for us. I remember one time in third grade when I played cello I was going to be in a school orchestra concert. The kids were all going to dress up but I thought I would be cool and wear what I thought were nice shorts and a shirt. My mom suggested that I wear pants, but I insisted so she let me be me. Unfortunately when I got to the recital I did not feel cool. I felt different from everyone else, especially when our teacher looked at me, grimaced and said: “Oh. You look……nice.” I asked her if I could go talk to my parents out in the audience about something for a minute. She said no, there wasn’t time. I snuck out anyways and in tears I made my way to mom in the audience. She immediately rushed me out to the car and sped all the way home as fast as the car would take us. She grabbed my suit, stuffed me into it and drove me back just in time for the start of the concert. I remember looking at her determined face as she wound her way through traffic and thinking that she was my total absolute hero. My love for her that day was so strong and I felt so incredibly happy during the concert beaming at her from behind my cello.
My mom always let me be me when I was growing up, whether it be keeping all manners of reptiles and creatures in the house or falling out of a 40-foot tree in our yard. I practically lived in the huge weeping willow in the side yard of our house in Schenectady, NY. I was a fearless climber and my mom would just sigh and watch her 5-year old climb around and swing from the upper branches like a monkey. One time I was at the top of the tree reaching for the very last branch and suddenly it cracked. I fell all the way to the ground, bouncing from branch to branch until I finally landed somehow unhurt next to one of the many large roots sticking up out of the earth. Hearing me cry my mom rushed out of the house to comfort me, but she didn’t discourage me from getting up and climbing right back into the tree. Later when I was a complete pain-in-the-ass teenager she still stuck with me, despite my penchant for sneaking out at night, smoking, drinking, getting high and chasing girls. There were times when she disciplined me and I told her that I hated her, but nothing could be farther from the truth and I wish I could take those moments back.
Thank goodness I came out of the jerk-teenager phase and now appreciate my mom for what she is: the kindest, most caring and sweetest person I have ever met. Her daring, adventurous love of life and her complete absolute selfless caring for others is contagious and hopefully I have acquired some of those traits from her. It was a blast having her with us last week and my kids love her like crazy, but when my wife Nadia and I heard the thump the other night at 10pm when my mom was going out for a walk I felt like I was going to puke. Then when I looked out my 2-story bedroom window down to the back deck to see my mom on the ground I almost did puke. I ran downstairs and out the back door as fast as I possibly could, scared out of my mind at what I would find. Although she missed a step in the dark and fell hard literally right on her face, she will be fine. She had 2 black eyes, abrasions and a bloody nose, but nothing was broken and in her usual selfless way she said she was alright and insisted we go back up to bed.
I could go on forever with cool stories and memories but I will close by saying thank you Mom for always encouraging me, sticking up for me, sticking with me, loving me and being my friend. Happy Mother’s Day Mom, and to all you mothers out there!
