The Dirt Field

The first thing I did this Mother’s Day was call my mother to ask about baking chicken. Can you cook the chicken directly in the marinade? How long should it bake? Oh, and happy Mother’s Day. Love you, see you in a few hours, gotta run.

This is not an uncommon sort of interaction. To say I am not the daughter of most mother’s dreams is an understatement; while I’m relatively successful in life, I’ve also brought home a lot of angst and chaos over the years. I’m on par with a cactus or a porcupine in terms of cuddliness and I’d generally rather put a fork in my eye than have a conversation about my feelings, hopes, and dreams. As her only child, I know my mother had hoped we’d be best friends, charting the course of my life together, and instead I came out to be a stubborn, moody, abrupt, independent person. I turned out to be my father.

When anybody meets my  mother, they always remark later that she is such a nice person. They’re right. My mother cares more about the people around her than anybody I know. She remembers important occasions, lovingly selects thoughtful and creative gifts, and always finds time to talk and lend a hand. My massage therapist has a day job at my mother’s office and he takes really good care of my aches and pains specifically because I am my mother’s daughter and he loves her and can’t stop talking about how she is such a sweet lady.

My mother’s own mom died of cancer when she was a teenager. In my estimation, it was one of the most formative points of my mother’s life: it happened suddenly, it was devastating, and it left her without a mother during the already tumultuous teenage years. If I had to guess, I would say one of the biggest reasons my mom cares about having a close mother-daughter relationship is because the only other one she had ended so early.

I wish I could have been better at giving that to her, but after 27 years, I’ve fallen short. When she calls to chat, I’m all about getting to the point and getting off the phone. When she tries to talk about my life, I often give the adult equivalent to the petulant child’s response to the “how was your day at school?” question: “FINE.” She would love to spend days together shopping, seeing shows, and traveling, yet all I have time for is work, cycling, chores, and maybe a quick family dinner. Even when I try to slow down, to be more patient and giving, I quickly revert back to being myself. She has always been there, waiting to be the best friend at the other end of this relationship, and I rarely show up.

But I want to make it clear to her, and to everybody else in the world, that my mother means everything to me. When life is crushing, when my heart has been broken, when I feel completely defeated, I know she still loves and supports me and that makes it manageable. I know, even if I don’t pick up the phone and reach out, that she is in my corner and it makes everything bearable. She is always there to talk, she celebrates all of my accomplishments, she is ready at a moment’s notice to fight my battles, and none of this goes unneeded or unappreciated. I could not have made it to where I am now without her.

At the end of my life, if I look back and realize that I’ve become my mother, I will consider it a very good thing. She is an amazing woman – strong, confident, creative, caring, and fiercely loyal to the people she loves –  and I am lucky to be the one person who can call her Mom. There is so much to learn from her about life, love, and being a kind person.

I love you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day. Oh, and I should have listened about the chicken – I put it in for an extra ten minutes and it has the texture of the sole of a Birkenstock.