To My Mom
“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power, or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.” -Maya Angelou
My mother is beautiful. But not just the kind of beauty you can only see with the naked eye. In the perfect words of my favorite writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, “She is beautiful, for the way she thought. She is beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She is beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn't beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She is beautiful, deep down to her soul.”
She is vivacious. She is like listening to your favorite song in the car with the windows down on a sunny day. She dances in the kitchen. She sings at the top of her lungs. She emulates rainbows and sunshine and blue skies and laughter.
My mother is Italian. And Irish. She talks with her hands. She’s wildly passionate. She’s loud. She stands up for what she believes in. She roots for the underdog. She would do anything for the people she loves.
There is no one like my mother. She is one in a billion. Growing up she had a lot of one-liners that have stuck with me into adulthood, the most infamous being “Improvise. Overcome. Adapt.” Meaning, when life throws things your way, stand up strong and roll with the punches. “Remember who you are,” which originated from the Padrone of our family, my grandfather. She’d say this to us on the first day of school to remind us that we are capable of anything. “Make good choices,” as we’d leave the house to hang out with friends. Spoiler alert: I did not make good choices. But she loved me anyway. And my personal favorite, “you are a treasure from Heaven.” There were a lot of times when I doubted myself and my place in the world. She never failed to remind me of my worth.
My mom and I have been through hell and back together. In my 25 years of life I’ve dealt with a lot of hard things, and many times didn’t think I’d be able to handle it. When I’d be faced with another storm, all I had to do was turn around. She was always behind me. She’s held my hand through the hardest days I didn’t think I’d survive, and carried me when I could no longer walk. Through every bad day, challenge, or breakup, through all the turmoil, she was there, standing next to me, weathering the storm with me.
I put her through a lot. And by “a lot” I don’t mean the normal teenage angst every mom has to deal with. I mean years of emotional misery. When I was first diagnosed with depression, she was sitting in the chair next to me at the doctor’s office as I cried, because I didn’t want to face the reality that I was mentally ill. She brought me my pill every morning because she knew I wouldn’t take it if she didn’t. She listened to Ted Talks and read books to better understand how to help me. When I felt like I didn’t want to live anymore, she drove 16 hours to Kansas and back to bring me home to get help. When I was at my weakest point, trembling from alcohol withdrawal and struggling to breathe, she sat with me and prayed over me until I was okay. She has always been on the sidelines cheering me on, and I don’t think I’d be here today if it weren’t for her.
There is no one like my mother. There is no one that I respect, adore and look up to more. She has fought for me in ways that no one else has. She has been, and always will be my biggest fan. She is irreplaceable. I am the luckiest person alive, because she is MY mother.
“All that I am, or ever hope to be, I owe to my mother.” -Abraham Lincoln
