for my mama.Today, you turn 56.
I know. I just told the whole internet how old you are.
But see, the thing is, I know you don't care. You're proud of every year. It probably helps that you look a good ten years younger than you are, but why dwell on technicalities?
You've never been one to get hung up on your age, period. You still know how to play and laugh and giggle like a teenager, long after most people have forgotten. But you were also old before your time.
At nineteen, you were married and pregnant.
At nineteen, I don't even think I'd even had a proper boyfriend.
At twenty, you moved halfway across the continent to a place you'd never been, with a baby in your belly and a skinny husband who was going to become a minister.
At twenty, I stayed up for five days straight cramming for finals, and passed out on the phone with you after writing my last exam. I still remember your voice, quiet and tinny from the receiver barely clasped in my outstretched hand:
"Hello? Meaghan?"
We've had very different lives. I don't hesitate to remind you of that when you tell me that you 'know how I feel.'
You know much more about where I'm at than I will ever realize, though. You can see inside me and through me with incredible ease, whether you've had the same experience or not. I know it breaks your heart sometimes, too, the things you see in me.
But you've never looked away. Not once.
I think you saw being a part of every aspect of my life as a joy, not an obligation or a job. You got to know me because you wanted to, not just because you were my parent.
You're kind of everyone's mom, anyhow. It comes naturally to you.
You're even the go-to mother for all my friends. You sew the wedding dresses, do the wedding flowers, cater the receptions, make the brunches, give the advice, knit the baby sweaters... the whole shebang.
You help us move and pack the boxes and clean the walls and re-caulk the bathtubs. You have us over for dinner when our food budgets run low. You've baked buckets of cookies for every eternally hungry guy I've ever brought through your door. You even made a steak dinner you couldn't really afford for an idiot I loved who opted to watch football instead of eat. Yikes.
And, yet, despite his rudeness, you just felt bad for me. For me! Imagine.
You can do anything, really, from wielding power tools to painting the sides of buses in the middle of the night to support your family to making the perfect cake to being a substitute art teacher to telling a funny story in a way -- and with a breathless giggle -- that no one will soon forget.
You adore Motown and art galleries and good shoes and peanut
butter-banana soy smoothies and anything to do with China and pretty
much every baby that appears in your line of sight.
You also love your mystery novels and your Australian soap operas and your British sitcoms and your decorating shows, but you never just watch television. You are always working on nine things at once. And if you are watching a DVD late at night with Dad, you knit to stay awake.
That being said, you don't sleep all that much. This we share. You could have kept that to yourself, but I suppose there are worse gifts you could have passed down. Like baby-fine hair or big feet.
Wait -- I got those, too.
We have the same greenish eyes, the same loopy handwriting, the same love of big earrings and rings, the same longsuffering-until-you-finally-push-me-too-far attitude, and the same capacity to love people, even when they disappoint the hell out of us. We both sing alto. Apparently, we also share a laugh.
On the other hand, you don't like coffee, except for the smell. I doubt I could convince you to listen to hip-hop or spend more than ten minutes at a MAC counter, even though you never leave home without your mascara on. You know enough about computers to send long emails and use Google Image search, but I doubt you'll ever tackle HTML. I love being onstage, but you'd rather sew the costumes.
You don't understand why I put things off that I need to do, being a woman of action. And you grew up one of four sisters and the daughter of parents who were never all that good at listening to you and seeing you as an individual.
I, however, had one brother and your undivided attention.
You made it different for me so that I would not share some of your hurts. I went on to find my own, but you tried to make my growing-up years as fun and free and joyful as possible. I know that the difficult experiences I've had cause you pain even now, because you weren't able to stop them from happening.
But the knowledge that you would have tried to protect me is enough to heal me most of the way, anyhow.
It's not all roses, mind you. We fight... oh, do we ever. Not often, but when we do? Batten down the hatches. We are powerful personalities, stubborn women with ideas and thoughts and notions and convictions.
I had my teenage yelling matches with you. I remember I told you I hated you once when you got on my last nerve.
You never believed it for a moment.
I sometimes get on your case when you argue with Dad, because I think you can be a little more critical than you realize. However, Dad can be a whole lot more irritating than I realize, so I should probably just let you work that out on your own.
Sometimes I blanch at your disapproval or judgment of something I want or enjoy. Sometimes you expect things from me I cannot deliver. Sometimes I just wish you'd get off my case. But I always come around.
At the end of the day, we are friends, you and I, though it's sometimes hard to balance being 'taken care of' with 'taking care of.' You don't always let me do for you as you do for me.
But I know I could trust you with anything, even if I don't sometimes, as is the natural way between mothers and daughters. Sometimes I don't tell you things because I don't want to disappoint you, and sometimes because I don't think you need to know. You accept this reality, even if I'm quite certain it irks you sometimes.
And you never associate a lack of information with a lack of love. That helps, too.
Mom, I know this has been a tough year for you. A tough few years, really, of financial strains and heartrending caretaking responsibilities and spiritual challenges and working hard to make things work. I know that you haven't had much of your own space to enjoy, and that your time has belonged to others for months and months and months.
My struggles have had their toll on you, too, and you can be certain that this breaks my heart. Sometimes I want to yell at you and beg you not to worry about things, to convince you that I'm fine before I risk disappointing you or worrying you.
But that would never work. You always manage to figure me out in the end.
I know you feel like all of these things have aged you rapidly in a short space of time. You even point out wrinkles to me in the mirror, though no one but you seems to notice that they exist.
You're beautiful, Mom. You have more life in your face than most people have in their whole bodies. When your eyes are tired, I can see through to the fatigue in your soul, but I can also see all the life and vitality in every wink.
I bet you don't know how much people love you and love being around you. I bet you don't know how gorgeous Dad thinks you are. I bet you don't know that when you walk in a room, people sigh with relief because a) the party has arrived; and b) you will know what to do with the gravy/fallen souffle/wine spill/annoying guest/senile old man who has locked himself in the bathroom.
You get it, Mom.
And you make us so happy just to be nearby.
So, on this day, when life is not perfect and we are not perfect and both of us are working and life is a blur, I wish I could whisk you off to a spa or buy you a brand-new wardrobe or take you out for a dinner that would roll your eyes back in your head. And we'll have our date, soon enough, just the two of us, to celebrate the occasion.
Until then, Judy Ann, know that you are loved. Know that I am more proud of you than I've ever been of myself. Know that I cherish your presence in my life, even when I am a grouchy little ingrate.
You're my mama. You're lovely. You are my best friend in the whole world.
One last thing:
A couple of years ago, you cried and cried and cried -- and made Dad cry, too! -- because you heard a song and suddenly had a sort of vision of me getting married.
Now, you didn't cry because the groom was a jerk or because you really wanted to make me a pretty dress or because you were foreseeing giant, heinous reception bills or because my romantic life has driven you to despair.
No -- you saw a future for me in that instant, and you couldn't possibly hold in all the hope and joy and delight you felt as a result.
Then -- as you are wont to do -- you passed that hope on to me, along with your innate conviction that I was and am worthy of a love story.
This song is apropos because it speaks volumes about the boisterous, wise, soft-hearted woman that you are.
And your precious words really do keep me hanging on, y'know.
Happy Birthday.
I love you.
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