Mom

Katie D.

May 15, 2009 - 1:00 PM

It's not cliché. It shouldn't be, anyway. Last weekend was Mother's Day, and tomorrow is my mom's birthday. It makes perfect sense to write a Mom blog.

My mom is my best friend. We talk every day. We are not similar in all ways. Friends don't have to be. But she supports me in incredible ways, and is very present in my thoughts every day. Enough so that I don't mind announcing this on the internet.

She has been miraculously supportive of my wild adventure ideas. When I called her halfway through spring term freshman year and told her I wanted to do an independent study Spanish immersion somewhere, she was the one who found me a school in Guatemala. She didn't freak out or tell me to wait a year or try to find someone else to travel with. She helped me make it happen. Since then, she has been the driving force for planning and practicality behind all of my greatest adventures. That includes my volunteering and my traveling, as well as serving as editor for all of my job applications. She even edits my blogs. (This one's a secret, though)

We all go through some upheaval as teenagers. I remember the first time I really fought with my parents, and the awful discomfort of being out-of-sync with my family. That teen aged realization that one's parents are not infallible ended up being a huge moment for me. It made the way clear for my mom to become my friend.

We came into social consciousness together. She was moving from a social-liberal but fiscal conservative model and into someone who votes budgets as moral documents. And I was coming out of (as far as I can tell) life-long passion for social justice into an understanding that these ideas have to be reflected in the political structures of our world. We founded a Social Justice committee together at my home church, St. Andrew UMC. That group has expanded and continued in a fabulous way, and is one of the things I am most proud of from high school.

There are thousands of other stories I could share. Stories of being a child, of the presents we received as bribes for good behavior on road trips. All those summers spent cheering us on during swim meets. The countless hours spent driving me to all my many activities growing up: to music lessons, karate, horseback riding lessons, and school. Her valiant (and largely successful) campaign to bring the entire family together for dinner more often than not, despite of our crazy and mismatched schedules. The aversion to television, the encouragement to spend whole summers climbing trees. The imperative to learn music, the freedom to choose what activities I would dedicate myself to. Her love of gardening and dancing and family card games. I could credit her for the fall back soundtrack of my life: the music written into my youth, like James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett, and Tom Petty.

But truly, the most important memory to me is that of her reading to me. She is, even now, the reading voice inside my head. She read to me every night, and taught me to love reading on my own. She read me books of all kinds. Children's books, young adult books, classics. She read Call of the Wild to me multiple times, despite her dislike of it (mostly stemming from the unpronounceable French words and names). I remember first hearing The Hobbit at a very early age, and that the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy followed soon after. I think she read me those fabulous books to me at least three times during my childhood. As I got old enough to learn to love reading on my own, she continued to read aloud to me, but now would also read and discuss the books I read on my own. We were part of a Mother-Daughter book club in the neighborhood, and would recommend books to each other. Reading has been a refuge and a passion for me since before I can remember. That, I think, is the most important gift from my mother. That, and the fact that I still hear her voice in my head as I read my novels: am attached to the cadence of her voice and the inflections of her words.

Wherever I go in my life I plan to bring her with me. In my travels thus-far, the emails I have sent home have been the best and most complete records of my travels. As I imagine a future in which I will hopefully be living abroad, I always imagine having enough space to bring my mother over for a few weeks, to drag her around the city, do some travel on our own, and go out dancing. The travels we have done together, most notably our trip to Buenos Aires at the end of my time studying abroad, have been wonderful times. I have to balance out my tendency to roll into a city without any plans with her desire to make plans to see all of the best in a city. We read books together, we play cards in restaurants. Her encouragement is what made it possible for me to begin my life as a traveler, at large in the world. I hope I can always take her with me.

There are a small few people I credit as being absolutely fundamental in my development into the person I am today. A couple fabulous teachers, some longtime friends, a few authors. And my mother. Always, always my mother.

Thank you.