Mothers Day

When I was young I enjoyed bird watching. I would watch the progress the local bird’s had over time. One evening I noticed the mother of a nest hadn’t returned for a few days. The lone chick made a very shrill lonely sound, as its hunger grew worse. By the end of the next day the baby chick had died. Without it’s mother it never had a chance.

That little bird had quite an effect on me. I too didn’t have a mother bird to nurture me. Of course I had various surrogates that kept me alive… but a surrogate is not a true mother. I felt a strong, tragic connection with that tiny bird. It wasn’t until that point that I understood the power a mother had. She was responsible for the very life of her child and nothing could ever fully replace her.

It’s easy to become a parent. An act of lustful indiscretion can easily result in a child. It’s another thing entirely to be a mother or father. A true mother shapes the life of her children more then anything else. People with selfish hearts do not make good parents; neither do the vain, the star-struck ideologues, the reckless, the violent or the careless.
Children inherent these traits, or rebel against them. They are shaped by the nature of their parents in ways I can only barely fathom or describe. Even the unfit have children; those children have more unfit children. Drug users sire drug users just like intellectuals sire intellectuals. One could theorize that the world will remain in status quo because of this. But more and more… those fit to be parents are unwilling. The brightest of our society choose to have no children because of the time involved. The poorest and least educated have multiple children early in their lives.

Of the best kinds of mothers there is one I hold in highest esteem. I struggled for a better part of a week looking for the exact word to use. But I couldn’t find one. I searched Internet databases and dusty books looking for the exact and perfect word. There wasn’t one. So I will tell you what the ideal parent is. I will tell you what I hope I can be someday, and I will tell you part of who my mother was.

From a strictly medical standpoint I shouldn’t be alive. My mother had a serious heart condition and having a child would, and almost did kill her. Her doctors urged her to abort me to save her life. She discounted them immediately. Even if it meant her life I would be born. I often wonder what thoughts went through her mind before I was born. She knew the risk it posed to her; she knew the risk it posed to me.

My mother herself never knew her real parents. My grandfather a former navy pilot adopted her and brought her to Utah when she was still very young. I now know from various accounts that she had trouble finding adoptive parents because of the nature of her heart problems. Back in those days it was believed she wouldn’t live past her teenage years.

I did a lot of research on my mother’s early life trying to understand her… and myself a little better. She conflicted with my pious grandparents over their church. I have heard many different accounts of her early life. But her own personal accounts speak of constant fighting with my grandfather, anger towards god and a wild almost reckless disregard for her own safety. Although there are no specifics (thankfully, nobody wants to know everything about their parents.) she talked of things she later regretted and coming to grips with her own mortality and beliefs. She emerged from that dark period a strong compassionate woman. People have told me that my mother was the kindest person they ever knew. People I didn’t know would walk up to me and tell me about my mother. It was no surprise she lived her life with intensity and joy. She outlived her doctor’s estimates by years and years. For the time period she lived it would be considered almost a miracle to survive as long as she did.

It was a bitter irony that it was her heart that failed her. I never knew her yet I could feel her kindness when people spoke about her. She was creative and intelligent, and bubbled with the kind of warmth you rarely see anymore.

I often wonder what went through her mind before I was born. I have been told that her love was so fierce it held off death itself. I have come to believe in recent years that my mother had in mind for me to do what she could not. I know She did not want me to replace her; she never had in mind an heir to her life. Yet I often feel that I have become exactly what my mother wanted. I am a writer, I am not held down by oppressive religions or dogmas. I have a clear strong heart and freedom to be whomever I choose.

She survived my birth barely, but it took a lot out of her. Two years and two months later she died. To live as long as she did was nothing short of a miracle. I know now and will forever know that it was her love that kept her alive those years. And each year on mother’s day I leave her flowers to show her that I haven’t forgotten her love or her sacrifice. There is no word appropriate to call a person of that caliber. The only word I know is mom.