In fourth grade, I was in a musical about the evolution of rock music. My scene was about the fifties, and I played one of Elvis’s backup dancers. Our director told us probably a month before the show that we were going to need to find poodle skirts for the performance.
I forgot to tell my mom about it until the night before our first and only dress rehearsal.
By 3:15 the next day, my mother had dug out her old sewing machine, gone to JoAnn’s fabrics, found a skirt pattern and some pink fleece and an iron-on poodle decal, handmade me my costume from scratch, and dropped it off at Half Day Elementary complete with an after-school snack. It was awesome. That October she made two smaller replicas so my sisters and I all matched for Halloween.
For most of my life, that’s been the picture I’ve had of my mom: someone who can drop anything and is always able to pull through for any of her kids no matter what. “Sacrifice” and “selflessness” are her middle names. Somehow she’s always been able to juggle all four of her kids, our two (pretty rambunctious) dogs, pretty much all the family finances, grocery shopping and cooking, laundry for six, getting us to school and soccer practice and dance classes and field hockey games and a capella rehearsals and family parties and friends’ houses and orthodontist appointments and whatever else we’ve ever needed. She’s opened our home to multiple graduate students and let them live in our basement without rent for as long as they’ve needed, be that a little over two weeks or a little under two years. (I’ve had more “older brothers and sisters” than any other firstborn I know.)
If it hasn’t been made obvious yet, my mom’s life doesn’t allow for all that much free time. Since I was born—but knowing her, probably even longer—her life has been dedicated to the service of others. In my nineteen years of knowing her, I can’t think of a single thing my mom has done for the sake of her own self-interest or personal gain. It’s what makes her one of my biggest personal heroes and inspirations, but also is probably a little bit why I feel like I’ve never really gotten to know much about who she is as an individual.
I’ve always been closer to my dad than my mom—I grew up sharing his love for music, and all of my memories of learning how to read come from him. He’s also just naturally more predisposed to be a lot more open with his thoughts and feelings, a trait I’ve definitely picked up from him, so conversation has always been easier with him and I’ve heard dozens of stories about every stage of his life. Last year I was talking to my advisor during a free period about how my relationship with my parents had been feeling really strained at the time, and she suggested that I take time with each of them to do something we liked to do together. I realized I couldn’t think of a moment ever where my mom and I had done something fun together, just the two of us. I had never even offered to come with her while she walked the dogs.
It was funny, in a not-so-funny way. My mom was the one person that I had spent the most time with in my life out of anyone in the world, and yet, she was one of the people in my life that I knew the least about. Recently, my parents went on a trip to Italy and France together for their 20th anniversary. They spent a couple weeks exploring beautiful European cities, and my mom rediscovered her college love for art history. When they came home, they told us everything about the food they ate, the hotels they stayed in, and the cities they explored—but nothing made my mom light up like talking about the museums they visited. She fell in love with impressionism, especially Claude Monet, and as soon as she was back bought a ton of books about different artists. I watched as my mother started to read again, more and more frequently. She got a membership at the Art Institute downtown, and could spend multiple days in a row over the summer looking at pieces in different exhibits while my youngest sister took dance classes a few blocks away. She started to work more often at the bookstore she and her siblings own, going to book signings and bringing bags of books to kids at elementary schools. Her spirits have noticeably lightened, and though she’s still incredibly busy, she’s seemed a lot less overwhelmed and tired. Which is fun, cause my mom and I both tend to laugh until we cry pretty often, and it was awesome to get to do that with her even more frequently.
As my siblings and I have gotten older, as kids tend to do, the four of us have also gotten a little bit more independent. Katy and I share one of the cars now, and Chris’s older friends can drive him places, and even little Lulu can ride her bike to Jackie’s house. With that comes more free time for my mom, if only just a little bit. She’s using it to her advantage and has started taking Italian classes at the community college. It was super cute to go school supplies shopping with her and watch her pick out notebooks and new pens, too. I’ll get texts from her every so often about people she talked to in class, or how she thinks she did on an exam. Or she’ll send me pictures of the dogs when I might be missing them, or cool facts about her favorite artists as she comes across them in her books. Being away from home has me experiencing my relationship with my mom in a way I never would have been able to while we were living in the same house.
During the first week here at Kenyon, I spilled coffee on my comfiest white shirt, and a few days later realized that I had left both my favorite pairs of black jeans at home. Both times, I texted my mom about it, laughing at my clumsiness and absentmindedness, and didn’t think much of it afterwards. Last week, she gave me the heads-up to check my PO box. There I found a box with not two, but four pairs of pants I’d left at home, a really cool-looking bleach pen, a new book, and enough snacks to last my roommate and me till Thanksgiving break (though I’ve definitely already finished off the box of white cheddar Cheez-Its). It reminded me a bit of a time I needed her help with a poodle skirt once. And though I’m beyond excited that I’m getting to know my mom so much better as she starts to take more time for herself, it’s always gonna be nice to be able to appreciate the fact that she’ll never stop being there for me.
Image Credit: Annmarie Morrison