It's Mother's Day, the day after the Hallmark store sees its highest springtime influx of men, and the day when, in modern times, social media is dominated by multi-generational family photos. For today's post, I'm going to tell you ten things you may not know about my mother. Hopefully this list will give you a clearer picture of who she is and what my life with her has been like.
1. She was the Homecoming Queen in high school, mostly because the band and theater kids voted for her and there were a lot of them.
2. She once misread a casserole recipe that called for slivered almonds, and added whole almonds instead. They cooked into something soft on the outside and crunchy on the inside. When we sat down to dinner, my sister named it "June Bug Hotdish." I don't remember Mom ever making it a second time.
3. She took me (and my older sister and our cousin) to my first big-time rock show for my fifteenth birthday. Which also means she was standing three feet away the first time I smelled marijuana smoke.
4. She decided to take violin lessons after she retired from teaching.
5. She spent most of her career teaching in the same district where I work now. Regardless of whatever respect or recognition or notoriety I've built up in my 23 years, and despite how extensive my own professional network has become in that time, there are still people in the district who will think of me first as her son. Not two years ago a complete stranger came to the school where I teach to run some special education assessments on a student of mine. When I introduced myself she recognized my name and said, "You wouldn't happen to be related to...."
6. She likes to garden, and for reasons that completely escape me, she loves weeding. She loves it so much that I know I can count on her to come to my house a few times this summer and clear the weeds from the landscaping rock in front of my house. Just because she thinks it's FUN.
7. She reads the entire newspaper every day.
8. When she was young, she used to pick on her little brother a lot. When I was young, I carried on this tradition by picking on his daughter.
9. After she retired, she talked about how someday she was going to fill out the paperwork required to go back and take on some substitute teacher jobs just to stay busy. She never got around to doing it and has no regrets. However, she did begin working in Community Education with adults who were learning to speak English. One of her students even invited her to her wedding.
10. She is largely responsible for any degree of success I have in navigating this elementary education world in which I live that is so overwhelmingly populated with women. So, to all of the women I know: If you think I'm at all gentle, kind, or respectful, she's the reason why. If you think I'm a jackass, well, that one's on me.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom!!
1 comment:
HEY!!!!!
Post a Comment