The Most Lovely… …weblog about life and all it encompasses.

The Most Lovely Gift

Growing up, you go through many phases of maturity. At some point or another you reach a point when you can look back and truly appreciate what it took for you to be where you are at that very moment. Usually you can attribute your life, your progress, and your ups and downs to one or a few people. For me, when thinking generally, I can attribute who I am and my life to so many people and occurrences, but when I think specifically, it's just one. You see, I think specifically about the gift I was given by my mom and the importance of her in my life. Not, of course, to exclude the importance of my father in my life, but my mother's role was something much different than his. While they both have sacrificed for my livelihood in incomparable ways, my mother's sacrifices are the gift I'm specifically speaking of, or my mother herself is.

This past May my mom, in her fifties, enrolled for the first time in Graduate School. Twenty-seven years after first being accepted to Graduate School but never attending, she has finally gotten her chance to do something for herself. Growing up I never could understand why she couldn't. Why won't she just shut us (her 5 children) off for a few hours a day and do something for herself - go to school, do her art, work a job she loves?, I would ask myself. Now that I've reached that certain level of maturity I reached, well, whenever I did, I can realize how impossible it was and is for her to be selfish. She lives her life to serve us, her most beautiful unintended masterpieces. She and my father fell head first into parenthood and hoped for the best, living each day trying to give us the best life they could. For her, that meant she couldn't bring herself to spend money on herself for school, when she felt she should be spending it on us. She felt she couldn't spend time on her art, when she had so many obligations for us. She felt she couldn't get a job she loved over one that paid better (the same sacrifice my father has made), when she wanted us so badly to have a good life.

Now that me and my four siblings are older (the youngest turning 18 this year), she is finally getting her chance at her own life. Finally getting the chance to be repaid for the gift she gave me and my siblings. Yet, it won't be the same and I can never truly repay her, because her gift won't stop being given our whole lives. She still, everyday, makes sacrifices for us. Sacrifices she shouldn't have to make. She is late to her classes to help us when we're in need. She has sleepless nights when we're in distress. She supports us financially when the recession leaves us jobless. She drives us to work and school, even if she has things she needs to do. And while nowadays I try to make it easy on her as much as possible, when you're young and dumb you feel entitled to this selflessness from your guardian. My best friend once told me that she was questioning her atheism because she thought about her mother and all she's done for her and feels there has to be something bigger, some greater force to thank for the gift that is her mom.

It's this friend who inspired  today's blog, my first blog. She found out in June that she is pregnant. At first it was distressing and devastating. She was about to turn 22, not out of college yet, and had not been dating the father very long. I look at her and I see my mom. I see her mom. I see my best friend about to give the best gift anyone can ever give to some one else, life and unconditional love. She may not see the positive side yet, but I can't help but be excited for her. I know that he'll love her like I love my mom and she loves her's. At the same time I want her to be able to succeed at this adventure, with her son, and still succeed at fulfilling her own. I can't help but want to help her in all the ways I could never help my own mom. It's a gift I can never repay my mother for, and my friend's son will never be able to repay her for, but I just wish I could make it easier for her to give.