“Every woman becomes their mother. That’s their tragedy. And no man becomes his. That’s his tragedy.”

~Oscar Wilde

I had always heard it said that it was inevitable: that most women turn out to be just like their mothers. As a teenager, this would have been the absolute most dreadful insight that I could have ever received concerning my future…

My mother would be the last person I would ever want to be cloned like. Thirty-ish years ago, she was nothing more than a complete embarrassment to me. Most of the time, anyway.

I know, I know, sounds pretty harsh, but this is coming from the perspective of me as a selfish teenager, okay? So bear with me.

In my eyes she was old. She lacked the common sense, better judgement, and the overall superior intelligence, that my sixteen-year-old self possessed. She had no sense of fashion (she thought high top chucks were UGLY!), she wouldn’t have known decent music if it slapped her in the face (her idea of a good concert was Neil Diamond-enough said), and she clearly had no clue what it was like to be a teenager. She was totally uncool in my eyes.

To make matter’s worse, my friends all LOVED her, which couldn’t have been more irritating! She was labeled by them as the “coolest mom” any of us had. This, she delighted in.

She was cruel sometimes, feeding off the embarrassment that she clearly was to me. She used to say this sort of “fun” was one of the perks of having a teenager. To this day, I am just thankful that she didn’t strangle me during those adolescent years.

 

“My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.”

~Mark Twain

 

It wasn’t until I up and moved out, that we actually started to become “friends.” Once we weren’t sharing the same household, I had come to realize she wasn’t quite as bad as I made her out to be. We often did lunch and went on shopping trips together, something I actually started to look forward to on a weekly basis.

We had our ups and downs in my twenties, but once we both established boundaries with each other, we actually became closer than we ever had been. I spoke to her at least once a day, if not more, for the remaining seventeen years I had left with her. She was my go-to person for advice, to vent, and to get opinions on anything and everything.

I remember my first Mother’s Day as a young and inexperienced twenty-two-year-old mother, a title I had only bore for a mere two months. It was during that short span of time, that I grew to really appreciate my mom. That year, our local newspaper offered ads to purchase honoring mothers that would be printed in the Mother’s Day edition of the Sunday paper.  I placed one of those ads writing up a few sentences explaining to her that I basically had “no idea,” and that I valued her so much more now that I was a mom myself.  Once she passed away, I found that little clipped-out paragraph, yellowed and encased in scotch tape, placed between the pages of her Bible.

It’s about this time of year, when the summer heat becomes thick and the days drag on, that I’m reminded of the month that my mama went to be with the Lord.

Not that I tally up the years annually, but for whatever reason, the other day, I realized it had been ten years…

Ten whole years since I’d heard her laugh or seen her face. Since I’d tasted her spaghetti that I still can’t quite master the way she did.

I believe it was in my teenage years, that my gramma once told me that no matter how old you are, there are always times when you still need your mama. She explained this philosophy as she had already spent countless years without her own mother.  Now, I totally get it.

A whole entire decade I’ve spent without my mom. And what a decade it’s been. I’ve encountered some of my hardest trials, like losing my dad and having a major surgery. But I’ve also endured some of my most wondrous blessings, like watching my grown kids embark on their own journeys and even becoming a gramma myself. What I wouldn’t give to have had my mama here for all those things. And everything in between.

During these ten years, I’ve become wiser.  I’ve learned that most of what my mother said was true-au contraire to what I had thought in my younger years.

I’ve also noticed that the older I get, the more I have become like my mother- something that, thirty years ago, would have made me cringe.

Not that long ago, I had someone tell me that I reminded them a lot of my mom.

Now, I can’t think of a higher compliment.