In honor of my mother’s upcoming birthday, I’d like to take a moment here to celebrate who she was to me. Remember when you were in elementary school and you accidentally called your teacher Mom? Well, funny enough, my mom was actually an elementary school teacher. She always possessed dual identities for me.
Most kids can’t fathom their teacher being anything but their teacher. Your elementary school teachers didn’t have lives outside of your classroom. They never left the school, they all probably bunked there together at night, right? How jarring was it for you when you accidentally saw them at the grocery store one day? The fact that my teacher had a life outside of her job was something I was always acutely aware of, so growing up I tried to make friends with my teachers and ask them little things about their families—the only other element of a teacher’s life I could imagine they had.
The same can be said for most of us when we think of our parents. They’re first and foremost our parents. We, their children, are the most important part of their lives. But we’re not the core of who they are. Our parents had lives before they had us. Of course they had a myriad of jobs and aspirations that they’ve likely told you about—but what else makes up a person?
Don’t you hate it that the first questions we ask people when we meet them are related to what they do for a living? When you really get to know someone you start asking them about the things you know they enjoy, most likely the things they like to do outside of their work day. Maybe they’re learning to crochet or embroider, maybe they are a “plant mom” or “dog mom,” or they love to go hiking or play on a volleyball team. We ask “What’s your favorite book/movie/band?” Suddenly knowing about their interests and hobbies opens them up as a whole new person.
That is how many of us celebrate each other—by that secondary, deeper layer that makes someone who they are to us. For Mother’s Day you likely celebrated your Mom or Grandma, that special woman in your life, by gifting her with things that you know she’d like based on what you know about her.
But what if you could know her even better?
When you think about your closest, best friends, what distinguishes them? My closest friends are the friends who know the most about my past and the things I’m not inclined to lightly share with just anyone. They’re the ones I trust with the experiences and thoughts that make up the core of me. In many ways they seem to understand the why behind my likes and dislikes, why I might react the way I do in certain situations.
My mom unexpectedly passed over 10 years ago, and one of the most frustrating things that still haunts me is that I didn’t get a chance to truly know her as an adult. I don’t know a lot of details about her past that made her who she was. Of course I know a handful of stories from her childhood that were important to her. I learned a lot about my namesake, her aunt, who she loved fiercely. I know she was a “tom boy,” but always wanted to grow her hair out and learn how to do her make-up. I know she always felt like her parents expected her to be “the boy,” the one who was tough and took care of things. I know she struggled with her body image and weight loss.
There were many things I learned because as an only child my mom was in many ways my best friend. In some ways we had a Gilmore Girls relationship when I was little, including some conflicts with her parents that cast Papa and Nana as Emily and Richard. But there were so many things I discovered after she died.
A part of me always wanted to be a creative writer because I loved books so much. And I likely love books so much because my mom was the “Reading Area Specialist” for her school district for many years. I knew she loved stories too, and knew she played around with the dream of becoming a librarian or one day writing a children’s book. I think I fell in love with those ideas too because of how easy it was to see that she loved them.
In high school I somehow convinced them to let me take the Creative Writing class twice (once as a sophomore and again as a senior). When I was a sophomore she passively encouraged me, but we didn’t go over my work; I don’t think I even thought to share any with her.
But after my mom died I learned she took a creative writing class in college. She wrote some poetry and stories about her childhood times in Arkansas. She contained multitudes!
I also discovered that when I was a baby she kept a journal…and in that journal she was writing directly to baby me. She tells me stories about when she was little, about her family, about my dad and his family, about how amazed she was watching me learn and grow. It is probably one of the most precious things I own. In those pages she’s simply having a conversation with me, so open, honest and natural, like talking with a friend.
Every time I re-read a journal entry or one of the little notes she wrote to me I find myself trying to pick out more about her. That’s the best way I can know more about what was in her mind. My dad helps me fill in a lot of questions when I think them up. Like when she was in school, what her best friends’ names were, how old she was when she did something, etc. But there is so much I wish I could ask her about. So many simple conversations I wish we could have.
So I’d like to challenge everyone to get to know your parents better. Get to know your grandparents, the older adults in your life that you cherish. Your mom is more than a mother. There’s so many other things that make her who she is. So now that you’ve celebrated her for being your mother, celebrate her for all the other aspects of who she is. What better way is there to express love than getting to know someone?
Margaret Breaks 