I was thinking about my mom recently and since it's Mother's Day I thought I would share my current remembrance.
My mom was pretty much "mom" like when I was growing up. She wasn't what you would call cool and she wasn't June Clever, but she was a good mom. All the kids in the neighborhood liked my mom. She let all us kids just be kids. She listened to us, she never batted an eye if my brother and I wanted to bring friends home for dinner or to spend the night. One day she came home from work to find 9 of us watching a movie in the living room and fixed enough spaghetti for dinner to feed all of us.
Mom baked cookies and made sure we did our homework. She tolerated our loud music, the front door banging- though in the summer by July she would be known to scream "either go out and stay out or come in and stay in but STOP BANGING THAT DAMN DOOR", and our constant barrage of visiting friends. She never stopped the games of tag until it was too dark to see at night. As long as we cleaned up our dress up mess or made sure the sprinkler was turned off, we could make messes and play with the garden hose as much as we wanted.
My mom was our mom and didn't try to be our pal and buddy. And as an adult, looking back, I love that even more about her. We had chores and if they weren't done she yelled. We had rules to follow and if we didn't, we could get a smack with the wooden spoon on the butt. We were expected to be respectful, to not sass, not talk back and if we we jerks, she wasn't afraid to heap on the guilt and ground us. Mom worked outside the home so we all had to do our part. She was also pretty in tune with what was going on at our schools and in the community. Again, it wasn't so she could be "cool" but because it was her job to know as her role as our parent. She didn't try and dress like a teenager either. She always looked nice but she did look like a mom- you know what I mean by this!
Now I want to clarify, my mom wasn't backward but she didn't try to act like a teenager or make fun of our music or clothes or verbiage. She didn't try to act like a teenager but she knew stuff. She was the manager of a retail store while I was in high school and this store had MTV on all the time so she was pretty familiar with music of my generation, which were the big hits of the 1980s, often thought of as an oxymoron in and of itself. Now, again, she knew the music, liked some of it, hated more of it, but tolerated it whether she was at work or whether is was blowing out of speakers at home.
As I'm telling you all this you probably have a pretty good picture of my mom- a nice, understanding, kind woman from small town Midwest. And you're probably wondering why I'm making sure you know that my mom was an excellent mom but very much "mom" like... I have a reason!
So it might come as a surprise that my mother had a favorite song and a favorite video. Well, okay, maybe not that she had a favorite song- lots of moms have a favorite song. But, I'm including the link here of my mom's all time favorite song and video- OF ALL TIME. When this came on the radio or TV, she would run in the room and blare it and dance around. Ummmm, yeah. Seriously. She really did. If it came on the radio when we were in the car, she blasted it. Even when she became unable to walk without her cane, she would still crank it up and "chair dance". I. AM. NOT. KIDDING. Even thinking back on it now, it still cracks me up and leaves me shocked and surprised. Really. I'm not kidding- this was her favorite song and video. Enjoy!
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