Hey, Mama

Hey, Mama, do you remember that year–that one Valentine’s Day–God, it was years ago…I think it was the year I’d just started teaching high school English, and was adjusting and single and trying so desperately to find my way? Do you remember that February 14, when, miles away, I sent you a card, and you sent me a card, and it turned out that we’d both picked the exact same Valentine card for one another?

Do remember the phone call? The way we laughed so hard at the fact that two women, miles away, studied seven overcrowded card kiosks and came up with the same “perfect” words to give to one another?

I love that. I loved that moment, opening the envelope and seeing that familiar verse staring right back at me.

I love that we can channel heart and mind and end up in the same place, although I will probably curse more than you’d like along the way.

Hey, Mama. Do you remember the walks? The long, three-to five-milers? How long did we do that–dang–5 years? 7? In blazing sun or crazy cold (remember the frostbite you got on your nose that one time when we decided that -4degrees wasn’t a big deal?), where I’d move my legs and open my heart about high-school angst, or you’d tell some crazy old family story, or if we were just soul-tired, we’d walk in silence, but together?

Everyone in the neighborhood knew us; if not by name, just by sight. “The Walkers.”

I love that. It was nuts, but I still love it. I also love that the few times my sister walked with you, you often sent her home mid-walk, alone, because she was so angry and so fractious, even though it’s mean of me to feel that way. Never, not once, did you send me home. We always returned to home base together. Sometimes exhausted, sometimes exhilarated, sometimes troubled, but always together.

Is it weird to send your mother a Valentine? Is it weird to walk beside her, year after year, no matter the weather? Seriously, I don’t know. That’s just what we did. It was our way, and I wouldn’t change a thing. Well, maybe the frostbite and the sunburns, but still.

This Mother’s Day, I’d just like to express my thanks. Again and over and over and forever. Wherever you are, wherever we are going, you will always be my True North. You will always be there, just like that Valentine card that we both knew held our hearts. You are always in mine.

Tagged as: mother's day, mothers and daughters