Today is the ??th birthday of my wonderful mother, Leslie!!
I started this off originally with listing my favorite things about her ... but then scrapped that all and decided to post a personal essay I wrote for her a few years back.Happy Birthday Mom! You are one of my best friends/favorite people in the world, and definitely the best mom I could ever ask for!!
"Red Popsicle Juice"
This is an apology to my mother.
April in Charleston is like June for most other places. At 4:00 p.m. the crickets buzzed wildly in the heat, and down a-ways the road shimmered. The bus was late. We stood in the shade of the great oaks, and tried not to sweat too much.
I was fourteen, and I was finally learning about fashion. I had realized a few months earlier that red and pink do not go, and that souvenir t-shirts are just not cute. I was also learning how to do my hair. I was a typical, self-conscious 8th grader. And, unfortunately, I was typical in more ways than one.
“Birdie chest!” Jeff Murray laughed as he launched an acorn at my under-developed body. I stared at him in anger, my cheeks heating from embarrassment. Yes, I was a beanpole, and it didn’t help that my former best friend (who had dumped me to be popular, like in all the books) was well-along in the boob department for her age. It also didn’t help that the boys in my grade were going through puberty.
As the bus bumped me along Fort Johnson Road that afternoon, my arms folded tightly across my chest, I thought about my plight. Here I was, supposedly a blossoming young daughter of God, but as far as I could see no blossoming was occurring. The boys apparently had the same ideas as I.
Life was so unfair. All the boys gawked at Hannah Keyes because she was developing. She was mean, and I was nice, but somehow life for her seemed better. This outrage had to have some explanation. It had to be someone’s fault! Then a bodiless voice floated into my consciousness; it was my mother’s. “When I was in high school I was really flat, too.” Of course … it was her fault!
It seems to me a natural thing that every girl reaches a point in her life when she feels that her mother is to blame for everything wrong. This is also usually the time when the mother and daughter fight the most. Yet at the same time, the daughter still idolizes her mother. This is a secret of course—what hormonal 16-year-old who wants so desperately to be accepted wants to admit that she still thinks her mother is perfect? It is paradox, but it is truth.
You see, before a girl becomes interested in make-up and boys her life is much simpler. Her life contains three essential things: her friends (both real and imaginary), her imagination, and her mother. And really, her mother is everything in her life. A mother is an invincible ally, indispensable to your cause. A mother is a doctor, who knows all the best ways to get rid of stomach aches, hiccups, and ear infections. A mother is a teacher, a chef, a cop, and a friend. A mother fulfills all the necessary roles in her daughter’s life.
“My mom doesn’t know anything about my life. I can’t talk to her about anything!”
Sitting at a table in Applebee’s on a Friday night, I perused over the menu while still listening to Katherine go on about how she and her family never had dinner together, and she how she could never tell her mom about crushes, homework, etc. I nodded agreement and wondered whether I should be adventurous and get the steak fajitas, or do the same old thing and get the chicken finger basket. I didn’t really think much about Katherine’s statement until later that night.
How can you not talk to your mom? This was a puzzle to me—I talked to my mom about everything! She knew more about my life and my friends than most moms could ever dream of knowing. Sure, we fought and disagreed, but I still sought her advice on everything, and usually followed it. I still enjoyed going to the mall and grocery store with her! I just could not understand how my friends did not like to spend time with their moms. Perhaps I was an anomaly in the world of 15-year-old girls.
My favorite role of my mom’s was bedtime story teller. I often drifted to sleep as she told tales of friendly beasts in bathtubs and silly piggies in puddles. Her voice, softly undulating as distant waves on the beach, was my lullaby every night. It lulled me to a sleep of mice, strawberries, and big hungry bears.
My mom has several different voices—family-home-evening voice, elementary-school-teacher voice, helping-out-with-homework voice—but her reading voice is my favorite. Even now when I hear her reading to my little brother I’ll go and sit on the floor at the foot of her bed and just listen to her voice. I don’t know the stories any more, and the characters are merely strangers met in passing, but it’s her voice that matters.
“I just don’t know who you are anymore, Kristina.”
I stormed up to my room, furious. It had been another one of those pointless fights that are so familiar: my mom was right, and wouldn’t back down, and I was wrong and wouldn’t admit it. This had been the pattern for the last few months.
I don’t remember what we fought about, or even if it was important, but I remember a lot of fights during my senior year. More fights than we’d ever had my whole life. I was miserable when we did fight, but like any typical teenager I would not take the fault. It made me angry beyond belief, but only during the last few months did I really understand what she was saying.
I carried a lot of resentment towards my mother for over a year. I still loved her, and I still loved talking to her, but I blamed her for most of the problems I had in my life. I was forced to quit piano lessons in third grade. I didn’t like the teacher much, so it didn’t bother me until later when I was having trouble advancing in theory as I taught myself. In seventh grade I was given another try at piano lessons, but at the end of the year I had to quit again. One more try in tenth grade produced the same effect. Because of this turn of events, I have often felt that I “got gypped” at my chance to be a great piano player.
I played one season of softball. Growing up in a group of girls that all played softball for years and years made me feel left out, even though I didn’t like the sport much.
I never got to take ballet or tap lessons. I never played soccer. I was never taught how to sew or cross-stitch. But my siblings got it all. My older brother saw the country via membership on the JIHS academic team. My older sister received five years of voice training. My little sister has played soccer since she was five, and my little brother has played nearly every organized sport. It seemed I had missed out on everything—been forgotten—while my siblings got everything. For the longest time I focused on this, and was resentful.
I hate to admit it, but the time when I finally released all of these feelings came this year, my sophomore year of college. I had always felt bad for having them, felt like less than a daughter than my mom deserved, but I hadn’t been able to shake them. One night it came.
It was a simple story, one of another mother and daughter. A simple story, a simple assignment in class, but it turned out to me to mean so much more. Perhaps it was not so simple. The author was the daughter, and to me she seemed like a good daughter. After reading the work, then thinking on it for a while, I started crying. I cried for a long time. I cried because I felt I was not a good daughter, and that my mom was in fact the one who had missed out. I cried because I wanted to be that daughter for her, but didn’t know how. And I cried because I finally began to realize the scope of all that I had received:
I appeared on stage as part of a theater company for seven years. I did pirouettes on basketball courts at half time with fellow members of the James Island Rave dance team. I spent 5 weeks honing the craft of creative writing at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities Summer Honors Program. High school is not the only place where I experienced life. As a young girl I spent hours jumping on trampolines, riding bikes, climbing trees, and making mud-pies. What is a soccer field to the boundless scope of a child’s imagination?
And that is just the physical aspect of what I received. More than all that, I received a mom who loves me despite the fact that I have been the cause of so much extra stress and worry, especially in the last year. She stayed at home for eighteen years to raise her family. I remember summer days spent making popsicles in the morning, then eating them on the way to the pool, sticky red juice running down my chin as I tried desperately to fight the heat in the battle for the cherry flavored ice treat. Three out of five days the smell of freshly baked cookies awaited me as I walked in the door from school. I remember several attempts at pets: Swebus, Penny, Squeaker, and Mikey. My mom wasn’t crazy about them, but she knew that we, the kids, loved them. I’d trade fresh home-made cookies for tap shoes any day.
So now I apologize. I don’t think before I speak. I’m selfish; I come home at 6:30 on a summer’s evening and don’t help with the dishes because I’ve had a “tiring and hot day at work.” I can’t, for the life of me, balance a checking account. I haven’t appreciated you for what you are. I’m not the daughter you deserve.
So Mom, here it is. The words that you have always said will make the situation better. I am sorry. I will help with the dishes from now on.
This is an apology to my mother.
April in Charleston is like June for most other places. At 4:00 p.m. the crickets buzzed wildly in the heat, and down a-ways the road shimmered. The bus was late. We stood in the shade of the great oaks, and tried not to sweat too much.
I was fourteen, and I was finally learning about fashion. I had realized a few months earlier that red and pink do not go, and that souvenir t-shirts are just not cute. I was also learning how to do my hair. I was a typical, self-conscious 8th grader. And, unfortunately, I was typical in more ways than one.
“Birdie chest!” Jeff Murray laughed as he launched an acorn at my under-developed body. I stared at him in anger, my cheeks heating from embarrassment. Yes, I was a beanpole, and it didn’t help that my former best friend (who had dumped me to be popular, like in all the books) was well-along in the boob department for her age. It also didn’t help that the boys in my grade were going through puberty.
As the bus bumped me along Fort Johnson Road that afternoon, my arms folded tightly across my chest, I thought about my plight. Here I was, supposedly a blossoming young daughter of God, but as far as I could see no blossoming was occurring. The boys apparently had the same ideas as I.
Life was so unfair. All the boys gawked at Hannah Keyes because she was developing. She was mean, and I was nice, but somehow life for her seemed better. This outrage had to have some explanation. It had to be someone’s fault! Then a bodiless voice floated into my consciousness; it was my mother’s. “When I was in high school I was really flat, too.” Of course … it was her fault!
It seems to me a natural thing that every girl reaches a point in her life when she feels that her mother is to blame for everything wrong. This is also usually the time when the mother and daughter fight the most. Yet at the same time, the daughter still idolizes her mother. This is a secret of course—what hormonal 16-year-old who wants so desperately to be accepted wants to admit that she still thinks her mother is perfect? It is paradox, but it is truth.
You see, before a girl becomes interested in make-up and boys her life is much simpler. Her life contains three essential things: her friends (both real and imaginary), her imagination, and her mother. And really, her mother is everything in her life. A mother is an invincible ally, indispensable to your cause. A mother is a doctor, who knows all the best ways to get rid of stomach aches, hiccups, and ear infections. A mother is a teacher, a chef, a cop, and a friend. A mother fulfills all the necessary roles in her daughter’s life.
“My mom doesn’t know anything about my life. I can’t talk to her about anything!”
Sitting at a table in Applebee’s on a Friday night, I perused over the menu while still listening to Katherine go on about how she and her family never had dinner together, and she how she could never tell her mom about crushes, homework, etc. I nodded agreement and wondered whether I should be adventurous and get the steak fajitas, or do the same old thing and get the chicken finger basket. I didn’t really think much about Katherine’s statement until later that night.
How can you not talk to your mom? This was a puzzle to me—I talked to my mom about everything! She knew more about my life and my friends than most moms could ever dream of knowing. Sure, we fought and disagreed, but I still sought her advice on everything, and usually followed it. I still enjoyed going to the mall and grocery store with her! I just could not understand how my friends did not like to spend time with their moms. Perhaps I was an anomaly in the world of 15-year-old girls.
My favorite role of my mom’s was bedtime story teller. I often drifted to sleep as she told tales of friendly beasts in bathtubs and silly piggies in puddles. Her voice, softly undulating as distant waves on the beach, was my lullaby every night. It lulled me to a sleep of mice, strawberries, and big hungry bears.
My mom has several different voices—family-home-evening voice, elementary-school-teacher voice, helping-out-with-homework voice—but her reading voice is my favorite. Even now when I hear her reading to my little brother I’ll go and sit on the floor at the foot of her bed and just listen to her voice. I don’t know the stories any more, and the characters are merely strangers met in passing, but it’s her voice that matters.
“I just don’t know who you are anymore, Kristina.”
I stormed up to my room, furious. It had been another one of those pointless fights that are so familiar: my mom was right, and wouldn’t back down, and I was wrong and wouldn’t admit it. This had been the pattern for the last few months.
I don’t remember what we fought about, or even if it was important, but I remember a lot of fights during my senior year. More fights than we’d ever had my whole life. I was miserable when we did fight, but like any typical teenager I would not take the fault. It made me angry beyond belief, but only during the last few months did I really understand what she was saying.
I carried a lot of resentment towards my mother for over a year. I still loved her, and I still loved talking to her, but I blamed her for most of the problems I had in my life. I was forced to quit piano lessons in third grade. I didn’t like the teacher much, so it didn’t bother me until later when I was having trouble advancing in theory as I taught myself. In seventh grade I was given another try at piano lessons, but at the end of the year I had to quit again. One more try in tenth grade produced the same effect. Because of this turn of events, I have often felt that I “got gypped” at my chance to be a great piano player.
I played one season of softball. Growing up in a group of girls that all played softball for years and years made me feel left out, even though I didn’t like the sport much.
I never got to take ballet or tap lessons. I never played soccer. I was never taught how to sew or cross-stitch. But my siblings got it all. My older brother saw the country via membership on the JIHS academic team. My older sister received five years of voice training. My little sister has played soccer since she was five, and my little brother has played nearly every organized sport. It seemed I had missed out on everything—been forgotten—while my siblings got everything. For the longest time I focused on this, and was resentful.
I hate to admit it, but the time when I finally released all of these feelings came this year, my sophomore year of college. I had always felt bad for having them, felt like less than a daughter than my mom deserved, but I hadn’t been able to shake them. One night it came.
It was a simple story, one of another mother and daughter. A simple story, a simple assignment in class, but it turned out to me to mean so much more. Perhaps it was not so simple. The author was the daughter, and to me she seemed like a good daughter. After reading the work, then thinking on it for a while, I started crying. I cried for a long time. I cried because I felt I was not a good daughter, and that my mom was in fact the one who had missed out. I cried because I wanted to be that daughter for her, but didn’t know how. And I cried because I finally began to realize the scope of all that I had received:
I appeared on stage as part of a theater company for seven years. I did pirouettes on basketball courts at half time with fellow members of the James Island Rave dance team. I spent 5 weeks honing the craft of creative writing at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities Summer Honors Program. High school is not the only place where I experienced life. As a young girl I spent hours jumping on trampolines, riding bikes, climbing trees, and making mud-pies. What is a soccer field to the boundless scope of a child’s imagination?
And that is just the physical aspect of what I received. More than all that, I received a mom who loves me despite the fact that I have been the cause of so much extra stress and worry, especially in the last year. She stayed at home for eighteen years to raise her family. I remember summer days spent making popsicles in the morning, then eating them on the way to the pool, sticky red juice running down my chin as I tried desperately to fight the heat in the battle for the cherry flavored ice treat. Three out of five days the smell of freshly baked cookies awaited me as I walked in the door from school. I remember several attempts at pets: Swebus, Penny, Squeaker, and Mikey. My mom wasn’t crazy about them, but she knew that we, the kids, loved them. I’d trade fresh home-made cookies for tap shoes any day.
So now I apologize. I don’t think before I speak. I’m selfish; I come home at 6:30 on a summer’s evening and don’t help with the dishes because I’ve had a “tiring and hot day at work.” I can’t, for the life of me, balance a checking account. I haven’t appreciated you for what you are. I’m not the daughter you deserve.
So Mom, here it is. The words that you have always said will make the situation better. I am sorry. I will help with the dishes from now on.
