Here is No Why

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I Love My Mom

May 12, 2008 12:01 AM

es, today was Mother's Day. I called my mom at about 7pm local time, and the first thing she said was "Son, I thought you had forgotten about me!"

Of course, I hadn't forgotten about my mom. I don't see how I ever could.

I think I've written before about how when I was a little kid I saved up for a long time--well, what seemed like a long time, anyway--to have enough money to buy this giant Lego pirate ship. I couldn't wait to get it, so when I finally had the roughly $100 that it was going to cost, I asked my mom to take me down to the K-Mart so that I could buy it. She did. And I looked all over the fucking place. But it wasn't in stock anymore. So we went to Wal-Mart. They didn't have it, either. So my mom drove me to every fucking retail store within a forty-mile radius just to see if we could find that thing.

More recently, I asked for an iPod for Christmas. My mom knows next to nothing about technology and absolutely nothing about MP3 players, so when my family explained to her what an iPod is--a $400 device that holds days worth of music--she figured it was something rather gigantic. So she went out to her car and started emptying out the trunk. "What are you doing?" my family asked her. And she explained that I had asked for this iPod thing, so she had to make room for it in the car. I remember hearing about her facial expression when she went to the Best Buy, asked for an iPod, and was handed an eight-inch cube. She kept staring at it and wondering where the rest of it was.

There are several points to these stories, I guess. The first is that I'm a spoiled brat. The second is that my mom can be sort of funny. But the thing that means the most to me about them is that they show that my mom's always, always given me everything I needed--and the vast majority of the things I wanted.

But those stories are about how she gave me things, and things don't really matter. She gave me much more than all that. When I was accused of threatening to kill someone, it was my mom that stood by me. When I decided to go to law school, it was my mom that supported the decision and defended it to various people who thought I had had enough school. When I felt like shit because I couldn't find a job, it was my mom that encouraged my somewhat frightening decision to start my own business. Which, I guess, isn't so surprising given that she owned her own business for years and years. My mom made millions of sacrifices so that I could be where I am and she never--not once--made me feel like she resented me for it.

Someday I hope I'll have kids of my own. And I can't wait for my mom to be their grandmother. But, more importantly, I hope that I can be half the parent she is.