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| My mom and I in Montana a decade ago |
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I know this sounds like I am totally sucking up, but it isn't. If it was, I would have made her mascot years ago or on her birthday or when I forgot to call or send her a card or whatever.
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My mom and I have a truly odd and wonderful relationship. My parents divorced when I was 7, and my mom married a man whom I couldn't stand. After a painful year all around she allowed me to live with my father. If you have read this blog then you know what a charming sociopathic liar my father was; and you would appreciate how difficult this must have been. I do now, but I didn't then.
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So I didn't grow up with her and quite often didn't see her for long stretches of time. But whenever I have had a gut wrenching problem, my mom has been there for me. I had a little nervous breakdown in college (while in the Navy ROTC, after a summer of active duty) and I went to live with her and her new husband with zero notice. It's easy to say, "of course she took you in". But she had 2 young kids then, she was working and her husband was in the marines and I was having a crises of sexuality that I couldn't even admit to myself. That is a lot for a person you to deal with after 11 years of not seeing them - even if it is an awkwardly semi-adult son.
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| Nick (mom's husband) and Mom at The Rocks ( as an aside - the Brits don't understand why Americans insist on going there) |
Anyway, that isn't why she is the Mascot of the Month, to be honest. Being gay is tough. Begin gay and being honest is really tough. Being gay and being honest in the late 1970s / early 80s was really really hard. My mom, through love and determination has shown me, over the yeas, that tough is manageable. Really hard is manageable. Impossibly hard, gut wrenching and things that would kill Superman - well you don't give up and they become manageable.
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And I am not sure that she knows she taught me this lesson. She didn't teach me all those "mom" things you learn. I never miss her chicken soup (the less said about her cooking, when I was young, the better - okay 1 phrase "chipped tuna on toast"). I miss making her salty dogs and lighting her cigarettes to bring them to her in the bath.
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| Nick, Jane, Eddie and My Mom something in Jolly Odle |
She taught me how to drink (and how not to drink), how to curse, how to deal with my father, how to accept who I am and how to survive a world that is, too often, unfathomable. She was 19 when I was born and I know I couldn't have done what she did when I was 19.
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You can't repay your parents. And, since I never really lived with her after age 7, we haven't had those touchy feely Hallmark Moments that make everyone cry at TV commercials. Instead, we have had those crazy ass moments in independent movies that make people go how screwed up is that? I wouldn't have it any other way..
My mom told me that it was going to be okay when I told her I was gay. Her only advice, be honest. It's going suck sometimes, but everyone deserves you to be honest.
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So its the month of Thanksgiving and its my blog.
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Thank you mom. Life has been, well if not wine and roses, at least tolerable even in the worst of times,
- and often you helped when you didn't know it