As
children, we call her Mom, Mommy, Mama, and sometimes even Mother, but once we
become women of a certain age, we call her friend.
As
I've grown in my life, I have come to view my mother as more my very best
friend in the world. She is the first one I think of to call when something
fantastic happens, or when things aren't going the way I had hoped they would.
My
mother is in the first generation of bona-fide, society-sanctioned single
mothers. It came about in the late 1960s and early 1970s when it was OK to
leave a man who wasn't meeting your needs. It was the time when women were
finding their strength and courage within themselves to say, enough. Divorce was no longer viewed as
a dirty little secret in families across the nation. Being a divorcee was no
longer the whispered gasp of disbelief in community or family functions. It was
just something women had chosen to do for as many reasons as there were
divorcees.
Growing
up in the home of a single mother was difficult and presented challenges unlike
any the nation had ever seen before -- some of which have yet to be resolved. Through it all my mother was like a rock that
couldn't be moved. She possessed a strength I didn't really see in many others.
Of course, she was my mother, so my
perception could be biased.
If I
had to name one thing that I appreciate the most about my mother it would be
the fact she never tried to be my friend - she was my mother. She loved me
unconditionally, without fail, and at the same time taught me right from wrong
through discipline and tough love.
Sometimes
when we look back on our relationships with our mothers, especially on this
special day of the year - Mother's Day, we tend to romanticize what it was. Or,
is it that we are choosing to remember the things that truly matter the most in
the end? I choose to believe the latter.
