Mother

One of the earliest books I remember reading is called Mom, You’re Fired. It is story of a girl named Tina who was embarrassed by her mother.

I grew up feeling embarrassed by my mother. She was everything I didn’t want to be: married at 18, a mother at 19 and barely earning a GED. She wore her black hair in a short puffy style, weighed down with hairspray and dressed in shabby mismatched clothes. Her makeup looked like it was spackled on with a putty knife and always seemed to be the first thing people noticed when they saw her. She was the original Tammy Faye.

Most women cite their mothers as inspiration. I do, too, but in a different way. She drove me not to be like her. I studied hard, read everything I could get my hands on and counted the days until I could leave for college. I wanted to be a journalist and have a career instead of being an unhappy housewife with three kids and a stingy husband. I changed my hairstyle constantly, making sure to avoid anything short and puffy, and wore lightly applied makeup. I was determined to be better than her.

In Mom, You’re Fired Tina eventually learns to accept her mother and not be embarrassed by her. I didn’t outgrow that. I entered adulthood just as embarrassed of my mother as I was during childhood. I avoided her as much as possible.

I was 27 and just months into my new career in public relations when my mother was diagnosed with liver disease. She entered the hospital and was discharged home after a weekend with not much encouragement from the doctor. She was home 24 hours when my father called me at work, asking me to come home to see if she needed to go back to the hospital. I think he was afraid she would die and he wouldn’t know what to do. After much begging and pleading, I agreed.

She was propped up on the sofa when I entered the living room, holding a glass of water. She put the glass to her lips to drink and water started spilling out of the glass onto her sweatshirt. Her liver was functioning so poorly that bile was backing up into her bloodstream and poisoning her. She would die without medical attention. I called for the ambulance and followed in my car back to St. Louis, not expecting her to make it through the night. I brought my dad home with me and helped him call relatives until he fell asleep on the sofa.

I underestimated my mother. She’s a fighter. She made it through that night, and many rough days and nights after that. She spent six weeks in that hospital, willing her body to recover and start repairing itself so she could return home. Death could find someone else to visit. Mom was busy.

I got to know my mother during those six weeks. I would work all day and then spend evenings in her hospital room watching television or reading to her. She loved The Grapes of Wrath and The Great Gatsby—two of my favorite books. She told me about the first time she had read both books, which was when she returned to school for her GED. Growing up, the only time I saw my mother read was when a copy of the National Enquirer made it into the house. She told me that if she could have had a career, it would have been in the media, and that she was so proud that was the path I had chosen.

But I broke down when she told me she had read my copy of Mom, You’re Fired when I was a kid and liked the story. She read it because she thought the title was hysterical, and the story comforted her whenever one of her children became angry with her. Remembering how Tina came to accept her mother, she hoped that I would accept her. It took 27 years, but I did.

It’s been eight years, and my mother is still with us. I thought about those six weeks in the hospital while waiting with my family to be seated for lunch on Mothers Day. No longer embarrassed, I was proud to be standing next to her and honoring her that day. I think she liked that gift better than her actual Mothers Day present, a subscription to People magazine.