HER(O)
My mom is a super hero. Before I go any further, I want to make that very clear. I am who I am today because of her. She raised three kids mostly on her own, and every decision she ever made was weighed first in light of that responsibility. She didn’t have time or energy some days left to coddle us; she was too busy keeping us alive. We were also a very rambunctious lot that often frayed her nerves with our bickering and fighting. She worked her fingers to the bone, sometimes working multiple jobs at once just to provide for us. We might not have had the newest name brand shoes or clothes, but thankfully my siblings and I didn’t care about that stuff. I thought Jordashe was name brand. They were cool to me. We never went without. I don’t know how she did it, but she did.
I remember begging my mom for a pair of air walk brand shoes, and by the time I got them, the kids in middle school called me a poser for wearing them. What is a poser anyway? In the Fifth grade a type of knitted pull over hoody we called a “Baja” was popular. My mom took us to the High Point flea market to get one of those ugly sweaters, or was it a coat? I showed up to school beaming with pride the following Monday. The kids promptly told me they were no longer in style. I never will forget, they literally said “those went out of style yesterday.” Dang, I was almost cool. So close. I still wore that scratchy multicolored sackcloth inspired pullover with pride the rest of the year. What did those kids know anyway. My mom has always done right by us.
One of the jobs my mom had when we were growing up was a dance teacher. Instead of sending us to daycare she sent us to dance classes. I have old VHS videos of me tumbling at dance recitals wearing the very best in sequined lycra technology. I was a fancy little man. Taking dance in elementary and middle school gave me a flexibility that was unmatched among my peers. Fast forward to middle and high school, that flexibility allowed me to not get pinned as fast during my wrestling matches. I’d still get pinned, mind you, but I’d make them work for it. My mom was at just about every wrestling match, and often brought my brother and I McDonalds after we cut weight for tournaments. Nothing ever tasted so good!
She always screamed the loudest for us while we were competing. My brother and I had to wrestle each other twice at tournaments. Once in middle school and once in high school. I don’t remember fighting harder in any other matches. Losing to my little brother in front of God, country, and my mom was disgraceful for a young man. I wonder which of her sons she yelled for louder? I figure she yelled loudest for me, but I imagine it was something like “stop crying, you’ll get him next time.” My brother was a psychopath, still is. He definitely beat me at one of those tournaments. I think I won at least once, but to be honest, it may have just been wishful thinking. They say history is written by the victors, well, in this case it’s good my brother isn’t a writer. So, I won at least once, surely. I wasn’t a good wrestler; I hope at least I was a good son.
I always worry that my mother will get the wrong idea about my intent with writing some of our stories. I never intend to paint her in a light other than glowing. Despite my best efforts, when I’ve sent early drafts of stories for her approval, she has sometimes responded from a place of hurt. That breaks my heart. My mom is one of the strongest people I’ve ever known, and perhaps not having children myself, our interpretations of events are wildly different. We both can agree times were hard in those early years. Where we differ, I’ve come to understand, she looks back with a level of shame, where I look back in awe at how she carried us through it all. She has nothing to be ashamed of, she did the absolute best she could and provided a life we didn’t deserve. She deserves a dang parade for all she did for us.
My mom had to make hard decisions, one after another, just to keep her three little ducklings in a row. I tell the stories I do because I think it’s imperative to illustrate where you’ve come from. This is the only legacy I’ll ever have. My stories will outlive me. That’s the hope anyway. I won’t have a biological legacy. Maybe some of these stories aren’t fun for her to remember, knowing parts of the story I wasn’t privy to, but I never want her to be sad looking back. I think I’m starting to understand her perspective to a small degree and want to be sensitive as I craft stories. I still believe in the power of storytelling, and the grace we have been given to triumph through so much adversity. Again, my mom is a rock star.
My mom grew up with absolutely nothing. To say she was poor as a child would be an understatement. Yet, that tumultuous upbringing she experienced made her one of the most financially sound adults I’ve ever met. She went from living in a house that sometimes wouldn’t have power because there wasn’t enough money that month to pay the power bill; to a woman who paid off her own house in record time. Her diligence and hard work allowed her to claw her way out of poverty and then keep going. She went from scarcity to literally a member of a country club. I watched most of it happen in real time and I am so proud of her. My mom is a fighter. She won’t take no for an answer and when it came to her kids, her sacrifices knew no bounds.
Mom always hated the music I loved. That didn’t stop her from financing my first PA for a hardcore band I was in in high school. She bought me that amp, two huge speakers and microphones so I could have professional gear because she knew that was important to me. Imagine her surprise at my first show, she was there by the way, when she saw her baby boy screaming like a banshee. Oh well, so it goes. The fact was she knew I needed that equipment, and financed it for me and let me pay it back over the summer with my pet store job.
Speaking of that job, my mom actually was responsible for that too. I was working a grueling job digging footings for a new home construction near my dad’s house. The man lived three houses down from my dad, and through a conversation I found myself making $5 an hour digging in the summer heat. My mom knew the pet store was my dream job, and saw they were hiring, so she set me up with an interview. I got the job and almost immediately quit the construction job. Unrelated, my boss on the construction job was Dean Folds, the father of Ben Folds, of Ben Folds Five fame. I’m sure no one outside of North Carolina cares about that, but it was a big deal to me at the time. I was star struck as I dug in the summer heat, until I quit to play with ferrets and snakes for a living.
I will never fully grasp the sacrifices my mom has made on my behalf. I won’t know what it’s like to have a moody teenager who blames her for things she couldn’t control. I often regret that so many times during my childhood, and teenage years that I reacted out of my own hurt before considering hers. I hope one day I can fully show my mother how much she means to me. I’ll never give her grandkids, and I’m not sure I regret it, although sometimes I wonder what being a father would have been like. I’m thankful my siblings have both had three kids each and they fulfilled that for her. My stories are how I’ll live on, and I pray my mom knows my intent has always and will always be to honor her. She deserves so much more than my feeble attempts at communicating with words on a page. It’s all I have to give, and I hope it’s good enough. Like I said in the beginning, my mom is my hero. She deserves the world.
Happy Mother’s Day
If you’d like to support my work, go check out my children’s books on Amazon and if you’ve read them, leave a review, a little goes a long way and that’s a HUGE help!
What a wonderful tribute! Thank you for sharing!