This weekend marks what I believe to be the most important holiday of the year. Now, I know I used similar verbiage to describe Pork in the Park a few weeks back, but this time I’m serious. The holiday I’m referring to of course is Mother’s Day. In fact, if it were up to me, we’d completely eliminate almost all holidays and keep only Mother’s Day, Independence Day, Veteran’s Day, and Thanksgiving…with Mother’s Day being the most important.
It’s no secret that my absolute favorite subjects to write about are my children and my mom (I think those facts have been pretty well documented). So this week, I’m going to use this holiday as a chance to speak about and honor the greatest person I’ve ever known, my mom. I’ve written about her several times before, so I’ll try not to be too redundant. But she was such a remarkable, larger than life person that I could write volumes about her. If you happen to be a newcomer to the column, I’ll try to summarize her as briefly as I can.
She was without a doubt the most thoughtful, caring, and compassionate person I’ve ever known. I don’t think I ever heard her say a harsh word to or about anyone. And to the best of my recollection, the only person who could ever truly piss her off was me. And unfortunately, I was pretty good at it. But all that I am I owe to her. I just wish she had made it long enough for “all that I am” to be something she could be proud of.
To put in perspective how amazing she was, she beat cancer five times. That sneaky bastard finally got her on bout number six. So now I have to wake up every day knowing that people like Kanye West and Michael Moore are living healthy, lucrative lives while my mom died at 63. If there is a God, and I truly hope that there is, I can’t help but question his or her motives. So I came up with a theory so I can somehow wrap my head around it, and here it is. If you were the Almighty, and could pick and choose just exactly who you wanted to hang out with you in heaven for all eternity, would you be plucking all of the assholes from Earth, or taking the best ones and leaving your mistakes behind? I’m pretty sure you won’t find that particular verse in the Bible, but to me it’s bullet proof logic and it kind of cushions the blow that she’s gone. If the afterlife is playing out the way I expect it would for my Mom, she’s seated right at the head table with the big fella. And I can visualize her and God fist bumping each other every time I go to the bathroom and return to find that my two toddlers have used markers on each other and my living room walls like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I can almost hear the laughter coming from Heaven as I spend my life swimming laps in quicksand. If she is in fact watching over me, I’m certain that she’s thoroughly enjoying the irony, the well deserved karma, and the daily struggles that are now my life. I’d really love to chat with her about this some day, but I’m pretty sure I’m heading for a warmer climate post-mortem. I purchased my ticket long ago, and while lately I’ve been working on an upgrade, I still have some significant work to do.
I always knew what an incredible lady she was, but unfortunately a lot of what I now know about her I learned from reading the plethora of newspaper, magazine articles, and radio talk shows produced about her in the days that followed her death. I’ll now give you some brief examples of the things she did without others even knowing. Most oncology doctors are male, at least at the hospitals that treated my Mom. So they could have the best bedside manner in the world, but when trying to explain to a young woman that she has a cancer indigenous only to women, he can only relate but so far. So at some point along the way, these doctors started giving out my mother’s phone number to these new patients. She never once had a moment of negativity or self pity, and her perpetually positive outlook and approach towards beating the disease ultimately landed her a non-paying gig as a coach of sorts. It was not at all uncommon to be sitting down to dinner at her house only to suddenly hear a knock at the door or the phone ringing. She of course would always answer no matter what was going on. I witnessed this a few times in person. In specific instance, we had literally just sat down to dinner. It was dark out, cold, and raining. There was a knock at the door, and on the other side of it was a young lady in her early 30’s in tears who had just received the worst news of her life. She and my mom had never previously met or even knew of each others existence. Her doctors had sent her to my mom. About 5 hours later, this same young lady was smiling, hugging, and thanking my mom as she left, and was ready to fight with her head held high. That’s just what my mom did.
I was the youngest of three by nearly a decade, so mom always referred to me as her baby. I’m sure this was cute when I was an infant, but I think by the time I started school, the novelty of being called the baby had worn off. She never called me that maliciously or with intent to embarrass me. And to her it was such a loving and endearing term. And I guess by definition, I was her baby. But I hated it! All through my teens, twenties, and even into my thirties I hated being called the baby. I never let her know that it bothered me though. The point is that I would give everything I have to hear her call me her baby just one more time.
Happy Mother’s Day Mom. I love you. I miss you more every day and I wish you could have gotten the chance to hold your four youngest grandchildren.
Thanks for playing along. Until next week, Syd Nichols
Please share your thoughts, hatred, and recipes with me at sydnichols@yahoo.com
