This column arrives after Mothers Day on purpose. It’s more real life to be late in an ‘Owed to Mothers’ tribute …it just fits.
“Hey, Mom will understand that we didn’t have time to buy a gift, get a card or call.”
Because Mom’s are the Queens of Understanding.
Now for me, the understanding from my Queen began when I was delivered to this planet by way of spaceship. Aliens left me on my parents’ doorstep and my mom, being the Saint she is, agreed to raise me as her own. It’s the only plausible explanation as to how she wound up getting stuck with me.
My mother is tiny framed and 5 foot 1 inch tall (and I think I’m being generous); I’m, how do they say it, “big boned” and 5’9”.
My mother maintains a weight that is within 10 pounds of my birth weight. She exercises everyday, lifts free weights, dabbles with yoga and tai chi and took golf lessons when I was a kid.
I spent grades 7, 8 and 9 in a full length leg cast due to a horrifying, death defying, cross country skiing incident. I’m still nervous around low grade inclines.
Her hands are small and delicate; I have man hands – I mean real catchers mitts. Her nails are filed beautifully to a sensible length and lightly coated in a pastel polish; mine are bitten, jagged, ridgey and I don’t care and she knows it.
There are a few early school pictures of me in a dress. Ick. It just wasn’t my thing. I preferred pants, sloppy shirts and hair tucked behind my ears in a Marsha Brady style.
Girly pom pom hats she would buy were thrown out at school. Sparkling white running shoes were left behind the wheels of the car so my dad would drive over them and scuff ‘em to a wearable condition.
When I was a teenager, my mother would head out to work each day in a classic pleat skirt, silky hose, stylish high heels, crisply ironed blouse and a smart, tailored jacket. Her hair would be gently streaked, makeup carefully applied and accessories perfectly selected.
I would race passed her in a Van Halen t-shirt, black eyeliner and a green lumber jacket with rock band pins plastered all over it.
Our home was impeccable; she whipped up healthy balanced meals after her Mary Tyler Moore day working for Mr. Grant, she took English Literature classes at U of T, volunteered, and smiled through every baton lesson, hockey practice or baseball game.
I live out of laundry hampers, praise the gods for inventing microwaves, take my courses online and sit at the kids’ practices distracted by the thousand things running through my brain.
And you know what my mom has told me pretty much every day of my life? You’d think it would be to pull it together or offer some tip on how I could do better. Nope. She has always told me she’s proud of me. Huh? That she loves me and doesn’t know how I do it. She says I’m smart, talented and these days, that I’m a great mom. Me!!! Ratty haired, broken nailed, sloppy, chunky, frumpy, messy, whiney, moany, her polar-opposite me!!
OMG - You don’t think she’s being mind-controlled by my Martian parents, do you?
Alison Davies is a humour columnist for the Trentonian. Her articles and essays have appeared throughout North America. Read her business blog at www.morebusiness.ca