On the other side

Have I told you about my mom? I am the first one to insist that there is no such thing as a perfect mother. If I believed in a perfect mother it would be ever so much harder to escape the haunting need to become that person, so for my own peace of mind I discard the idea altogether. I have to say though, I have a mom who comes pretty darn close. Not that she has always been so close to perfect - casting no unknown shadow or disparity on my mom, she is the first to admit her failures and shortcomings raising 6 children entirely at home without the reprieve of sending them away to school on a daily basis. She persevered through 6 children of highly developed intellect and opinion, perhaps to her credit, not a soft thinker in the lot of us. My mom foraged her way in the frontier of home education with 6 different learning styles and personalities, not all of them forgiving and certainly not all of them easy to understand or agree with.

Surviving the formidable 30 some odd years of this lifestyle, she warred through the difficulties of uncovering all of the solutions-turned-nemeses presented to parents in such a pursuit. Every next-best-thing could be the answer to child rearing or the key to blowing your family into a bajillion pieces. As a family, we encountered all levels. I know a lot of families. Families that shared our background, families as different from ours as one could imagine, and for all of the trying in every family to "do the best thing", I can honestly say for certain I have not witnessed one family get it all right yet. It certainly won't be my family.

But back to my mom. After enduring the heartache of losing some of her children to lofty and disgustingly human ideals, and some to pure physical tragedy, she is now, by and large, restored to all of her living children and each one adores her. Not without the memories of the blemishes that we all smudged the past with, as both she and we as her children have inflicted damage, but we are all here, voluntarily in happy relationship with her (and dad of course, but this is about mom).

The beautiful thing about mom is that somewhere along the way, she came to terms with the fact that failure and imperfection were unavoidable, but the one thing that she could have some control over was the impact she had on the world around her by the personal choices she makes, choices about attitudes and responses and priorities. I have watched my mom weep tears for each of my grown siblings, including myself, and know with no uncertainty that there is no length that she would go to to spare us of unnecessary suffering. Not that she would seek to shelter us from the natural consequences of our poor decisions -although I have seen her struggle with even that admission of pain to her children. But after years of pouring her life into us she still seeks ways to give of herself to make us happy.

I will always remember the indignance that my mom had at the sight of the bumper sticker On RVs that gloated "I'm spending my children's inheritance". My mom hated that attitude. She hated that idea. I love that my parents are finally financially comfortable, only through years of hard work and sacrifice on both of their parts, but I am secure in the fact that they would give up all of that comfort in a heartbeat if one of us was in jeopardy. And there is just enough Nancy Drew left in my mom that I know she has a back up plan for the whole family if this crazy world ever went bellyup.

I guess the fact that my mom shelled out $6000 and flew across the country with me for a long shot surgery that MIGHT make my life more bearable speaks volumes to me about where her priorities are. I feel loved. I feel special. I feel cared for. And although in this second maybe my brothers and sisters can't say she has done the same for them (all though most would), they know that there would be no question but that she would for them as well. And even if she didn't, for whatever reason, how could I not do the same for someone else, or any other one of us that she has helped so selflessly? Mom is the example of imperfect selflessness that I believe we all would like to become, and I am fiercely proud of her.

So I know there are no perfect moms, but I would submit, for the record, that mine is pretty dang close. Except we don't say dang.

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