I <3 my mum
Finally back from my New Year's holiday, which included something of a technology blackout: no cellphone coverage, so no day-to-day Tweets of the day's happenings, so no receiving or sending of New Year's text messages, much to my chagrin because those on rival cellphone networks did get some modicum of reception and were still able to receive New Year's text message love :(
So, on to the blog post backlog I had in my mind. First-up on the list: my mum.
At a Christmas party a week before Christmas day of good ol' 2009, a certain someone - who I haven't yet mentioned in this blog before, and so doesn't have a witty nickname to which I can attach to them, to which I am surprised considering the contribution this person made to my 2009 which in turn made it so great - asked me a pretty tough question:
"What kind of person is your mum?"
How we got on to the topic of my mother, I can't remember - it might have something to do with a certain button badge I was given prior to this party - but when I was faced with that question my mind drew a blank. After what seemed like minutes of silence from me while my interrogator watched patiently at the cogs turning behind my eyes, all I could respond with was:
"I don't know how to answer that. Give me a day or 2 and I'll come-up with something."
"Good answer." she said, and walked away to leave me to contemplate the sorts of things I could say about my own mother.
So I gave the thought a day, which then became 2, which then stretched out from however many days there are between a week before Christmas and now...
When thinking about how I describe anybody, I usually look for that 1 trait that sets them apart from the rest; the thing that makes them unique to me. In the case of my mum, it would be that she is self-sacrificing for her children: everything she did, she did for my brother and I.
That trait encompasses many things: unconditional love, support, a level head whenever I asked her about the decisions I was facing (giving me the answer that would benefit me the most, even if the answer was not what I wanted to hear), and an almost embarrassing willingness to go out of her way to make sure my brother and I were as comfortable as we could be (eg: driving out from her work after school hours to take us home, giving us more than our share of food at the table, giving-up the window seat on a plane, etc).
That trait however is a bit of a double-edged sword; as well as being what makes my mum so great, it's also what has annoyed me the most: the unconditional love is often blind to what's going-on with others, the support would often make me think I was right when I was in the wrong, the honest answers might have carried me down the much safer path which could've given me valuable lessons or challenges to face, and the 'out-of-her-way'-ness often became too embarrassing, particularly when around my friends throughout those terrible teenage years.
Despite the good and bad nature of a child-centric focus, it's all the sorts of things I have grown to expect from a mother - and all the sorts of things that compose the yard stick by which I measure every mother I have known or will know.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
"A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie."
- Tenneva Jordan