In all honesty this is not a true ode, but I wanted to write a congratulations to my mother. On Friday she opened her newest location of her business that she began when we moved to Rochester when I was 4 years old. She started her business in our home and then moved it into a basement downtown. From there she moved into a room in the Kahler Hotel, her next location was in the Kahler Subway. She then moved to a different location in the Subway and expanded her business. After much soul searching (and some other influences) she decided to go back to the core of why she started her business and moved into the Galleria.
So I just wanted to take a moment and say congratulations mom and I am so proud of the decades of hard work you have put into your business. I have always told people that besides Jessica and I, the legacy that you will leave behind is your business. You have been an amazing role model all my life of what it means to work very hard and love what you do. I have a job that I love and work very hard at because I know that it is valuable. Thank you for that. You should be very proud of what all your hard work has accomplished!
I talked about what my mom did for me when I was very sick last year. I was thinking more about it and I remembered how much she sacrificed and how stressful and scary it was for her to experience it with me. At one point it seemed like there were a lot of mistakes being made and she was scared that some platelets that I needed would make me very sick (because there was a small chance of that and the doctor at that time wasn’t very good at explaining the risks versus the benefits). She had been through too much and we both didn’t trust this doctor and he didn’t understand the concerns that she had.
It was at that point that I knew the toll of her being there for me was taking on her. She invited a couple of her friends that had experience with hospitals to come and talk to us about what they would recommend. I talked to both of them privately and asked what I should do for mom because of the stress it was causing her. The first one pretty much told me to act my age and stop being selfish and asking mom for all this support.
The second one said that it was very important to my mom to be there for me and that’s what she wanted to do. She said that she would work on being there for mom to lessen the stress on her. I tell this story (even though it’s probably news to my mom) because it is a good reminder to me that being a parent isn’t always an easy thing and there are REALLY hard parts. For my mom to be there for me when I was sick forced her to make lots of sacrifices. And for this I have endless gratitude and know the kind of mother I want to be. I also am forever grateful to her friend that was able to take some of the burden from my mom so she could be there for me even though asking her to do that for me made me feel like a baby and very selfish.
Another thing that I always respected my mom so deeply for was making the choice to let Jessica and I make our own opinions about my father and other family. As a teacher and in my personal life I have witnessed kids stuck in the middle of families and witness to parents spewing poison about one another.
If anyone had the right to bias their children about the “other parent” it was my mom. My father and his family gave her ample opportunities to tell us less than flattering things about them. When I would ask her direct questions about something about my father she would answer the question fairly and factually, she never let her opinion and experience shadow her answers.
She always let us make decisions about if we wanted a relationship with our father. When she knew that I was talking and writing to him she never discouraged or made me feel guilty about this. She always let me have my own opinion about my father. I can’t even imagine how difficult this was as she struggled to make ends meet and be a single parent; not to mention the pain he caused her.
So I just wanted to take a moment to say THANKS A LOT MOM. I really appreciate you setting unrealistic standards as a parent! I love you more than most infinity.
