Giving Thanks: My Ma

The car door slammed shut, a great thud that continues to reverberate through my head to this day. I peered back at the faces that had greeted me each day with a smile and a wink and took the first anxious step toward my future.

I will not soon forget the day I left home for the dorms, because my mother won’t let me. It was the day I gained independence from my parents’ watchful and all-knowing eyes, and I knew it as I trudged up the steps to my second floor room. I had longed for it, longed to be out of the reach of my (sometimes) overbearing and nosy mother, who never let an opportunity pass to remind me how I should behave, speak, act and even eat. But not till last week did I realize that mothering is all the woman knows, and when my sister and I handed her her pink slip, all she was left with was her duties to pay our rents.

Oh, she still showed up for work everyday I let her in the door, chiding me for living at school on summer and winter breaks as opposed to her domicile only 12 miles away. She took it personally when I stayed by myself in the crappy three bedroom I call home, braving the oppressive humidity of July in a building that knows no air conditioning. She cried as our relationship deteriorated, with her working harder to get us back to what we once knew, while I chafed under her relentless attempt to force her way into my life. Why couldn’t she let me go? Why didn’t she understand I was forging my own path, that I longed to be free of her “house rules” and obligations, that I wished to be on my own, with my own money, my own “house rules?”

What I didn’t realize was that I was killing the poor woman, robbing her of her daily duties and, in a small way, her dignity. Her children had left her, her nest was empty, and all she had left was to improve my Pop, but after 27 years of marriage, she has done all she can with him. After 20 years on the job, she was rudely shown the door, before she could collect her things or even secure a severance package.

So when I made my weekly sojourn home to do my laundry last week, and was greeted by a pair of eyes that could stop your heart, I couldn’t help but drop my bags to the floor with a start. I stood frozen as the owner of the eyes stared back at me, leaping at the barrier that separated us in an attempt to inspect this new visitor in her new habitat. There would be no return to school for my mother, because her resume had finally been accepted, and she had gotten her old job back.

Watching my mother with the adorable Teddie, a half poodle, half shitzu, calling herself “mommy” as the doting ball of fur followed her every stride brought a grin to my face; it was as if I had seen her reborn. I couldn’t remember seeing her so happy, so full of energy and excitement. But as the joy of seeing my mother this way began to fade, I began to understand our relationship better. I’ve seen this woman mostly as an obstacle since that car door slammed shut, someone who was more concerned with holding on to what I once was, as opposed to helping me realize what I would become. I thought she wanted her little boy, that she was too scared to admit I had grown up and left her, but that was not it at all. She wanted to know she was still important, that I still valued her in my life, and when I made it apparent that I believed I know longer needed her, it broke her heart. She didn’t want to tell me what to do anymore, she only wanted to offer advice because she didn’t want to see me fall, she wanted to lend a hand so that I didn’t have to feel pain. I thought I had matured because I no longer relied on her, but what I realized was that I had one step left, and that was to learn how to still let her in on my life.

Our newest member of the family can’t speak, read or write, but somehow, it taught me a lesson about my relationship with my mother. My mother has bucked the employment trend, and I’ve taken one more step out of adolescence.