This past weekend I was able to spend time with my mother and show her that I appreciate her. I make regular trips back to Indiana with my wife, so I see her often, but Mother’s Day is a more specific day to show our appreciation. There have been many times that I made the trip back to Indiana to see my parents specifically. Being further from home than before (during undergrad) has made the dynamic of our relationship change. I’d like to think that we depend on them less now that we are further away, but I’m not so sure that change has really happened at this time. I feel like we all need our parents and the role of being a mother or father never truly ends.
I have the greatest Mother. You may be thinking that you have the greatest mother, but that just can’t be true (unless you are one of my 5 siblings). My mother is the strongest woman that has influenced my life and I am very grateful. The primary reason that I have the best mother is that she has given so much effort to make sure we are happy (and fed). Obviously, part of my reasoning was going to revolve around food. Looking back now, I can see that she did a lot more for me than I thought at the time. We tend not to see the true effort that someone puts into us until later.
My parents have dedicated a lot of time and energy to us to make sure that we will succeed in life. Our parents teach us nearly everything while we are growing up. I tend to share a lot of the same interests of my mom, which may be why we enjoy spending so much time together. I like cooking and doing projects with her, but I haven’t been able to do as much since moving to Ohio. She is a great baker and nearly always has cooking lying for snacks.
A Short Story
When I was in elementary school, I was an amazing student. Probably. I’m not really sure since my favorite subject was recess and I usually waited all morning for lunch time. Maybe I was actually the stereotypical grade-schooler playing kickball at recess, forgetting to do their homework, and doing nearly anything for candy.
My mom put in the effort to drive us to school everyday instead of taking the bus. Taking the bus would have resulted in a long ride and leaving home very early. It would also have resulted in getting home later, so my parents decided that they would take us to school. I greatly enjoyed being dropped off by my mom and having her pick me up from school. It was way more fun to finish my last class and run out of the school looking for my parents’ blue van instead of being packed into a school bus.
I feel like I never made it easy on my mom, though she was putting out the extra effort to help us. One of the most common strains I (and my siblings) put on her was forgetting something at home on our way to school. I would typically forget my agenda at home and sometimes my entire backpack! I must have been carrying it around, got distracted and put it down somewhere I couldn’t remember.
My typical scenario would be as follows:
Mom: Get in the van and don’t forget your backpack.
Me: Okay!
Arrives at school
Mom: Have a good day! Do you have all of your stuff?
Me: Ahh! I forgot my backpack.
Mom: *sighs* I will go get it and drop it off at the principals office for you.
Me: Thanks!
Mom flies home to grab backpack so I don’t fail 2nd grade. Returns to school with lightning speed.
I would then sit in class and wait for the principal’s office to call my teacher so I could go get my backpack with all my school stuff inside. As an upside, we only lived about 10 minutes from the school but this put a lot more strain on my mom. I never heard her complain about any of these shenanigans with us forgetting our school stuff at home, just a reminder every time not to forget so she didn’t have to drop it off for us.
Thank You
Thank you Mama for everything that you have done for us. I really appreciate you and someday might be able to pay you back for all the round trips bringing me my backpack. Until I figure out how to ever make it even, I will have to just say thank you, Happy Mothers Day and soon birthday.
