“The Difficult Lesson,” by William-
AdolpheBouguereau. Image via Wikipedia
I couldn’t think of a tribute that would fully encompass all of how I feel about my mother. I wasn’t able to write something moving about the bond between daughter and parent, every time I started something this week I deleted it.
So instead, I give to you a list of Thank-you’s to a woman far braver than I.
Thank you for leaving me to scream, cry, and flail alone in the grocery store aisle. As I reached out with chubby little hands and demanded you buy me a bag of chips—you put your foot down and said no. The louder I became, the more adamant about your decision you were. As my face turned purple and I started screaming my lungs out after hitting the floor wailing and carrying on—you didn’t give in. You simply told me quietly that when I am done and was ready to act like a decent human being you’d be in the car. You took your grocery cart amidst the gaping onlookers of the store and left me there in the aisle to continue on with my idiocy until my teeny tiny child brain could catch onto things.
You could have caved and bought me those chips just to shut me up, to stop me from making a scene. You didn’t. Thank you for teaching me that acting like Paris Hilton gets you nothing in life. I have not forgotten your lesson.
Thank you for spending the first three years after I was born in a near perpetual sleepless state, washing baby clothes, cleaning up spit-out peas, trying to figure out why I cried for hours on end for no reason and not going insane from it. Thank you for not giving up in those long nights when I wouldn’t be comforted as a baby. I didn’t know it then, but this was part of a lesson in unbending patience and love.
Thank you for not strangling me when I came up with the stupidest ideas on the face of the earth. Like that one time I decided to pull up our neighbors tulips simply because one of the older boys told me it would be an awesome idea. You made me march right over to that lady’s house with my most precious doll in hand and made sure that I handed it over in compensation to her flowers. At the time, I thought that you were tearing my heart out with toothpicks and splattering it on the wall, because that cabbage patch kid doll was the most important thing in my whole world EVAR—but I realized as I grew older that you were trying to teach me that stupid decisions hold consequences. I am trying not to forget this lesson.
Thank you for getting mad at me when I wouldn’t do something I should. Thank you for hounding me about the home work, the science projects, whether or not I was taking notes in class. Thank you for the heart-wrenching disappointment when I failed—reminding me that there was someone behind me in the first place cheering along side me. When I was a teenager I hated this with the passion of a thousand white-hot suns. The constant push to do better, to study, to get good grades; I did not believe I could while you did. I did not think it was worth it while you did your very best to try and tell me it was.
I failed you in this—I didn’t understand you weren’t doing this out of some sick pleasure because OMG LIKE, YOU TOTALLY JUST WANNA LIKE, RUIN MY LIFE!—you were doing it because you loved me and it broke your heart when I did not succeed.
Thank you for telling me outright when my friends sucked. You always knew; either it was mother’s intuition or just plain keen instinct, you always knew when a friend of mine was going to be trouble. You were older, wiser, and you knew what to look for yet every time you told me a friend was no good, I, like the idiot most children are, thought you were some how trying to take away things that made me happy.
This wasn’t true of course, and I was being the usual teenage retard. Inevitably, the friend you’d warn me about would hurt me deeply and leave. I would conveniently forget your advice then and wonder why that person did what they did and how I didn’t see it coming. Thank you for not smacking me upside the head hard enough to leave a dent then, as I would have deserved it. You taught me to listen to people.
Thank you for being my mother. Most of my teen age years were spent lamenting over how awful I thought things were. It is a shame how much time I wasted before my eyes were opened and I realized the best thing I ever had, had always been by my side.
We never truly got along and we don’t always see eye to eye. But I understand now and I will always love you.
Happy Mother’s day.
61 Responses to “Thanks, Mom, for leaving me in that grocery aisle.”
Firstly, Melissa’s mom is a super lady! Not only did she raise Melissa mostly alone (Melissa’s dad was in the military for eons) She raised Melissa while suffering from severe insulin dependent diabetes plus the major side effects caused by diabetes.
I can attest factually that A) Melissa was and is an overall great kid and B) Her mother was and IS a great mother, wife, and whenever necessary, a friend to Melissa.
Fortunately, she didn’t write anything about her Dad. He’s a mean cantankerous and vindictive SOB who is hard headed enough to come down South of the Border, track someone down and kick their butt for insulting his wife AND best friend.
Incidentally, Melissa’ Dad also taught her the following mantras:
1: – If you can’t find anything good to say about anybody or anything, t’is best to keep quiet, especially if one has no idea of what they speak.
2: – Most times it is better to keep one’s big yap shut and to be thought of as an idiot, then to open one’s mouth and remove any doubt.
3: – Opinions are like sphincter muscles, everybody has one. Prior to expressing your opinion, review lessons one and two above.
For those that don’t know, |Melissa has a 10 year old brother. He’s being raised in exactly the same manner Melissa was raised. He’s doing quite well, he has his chores, he earns his allowance ( there is no free ride in life); neither his Mom nor his Dad cleans his room or makes his bed. He’s been doing it since he was 5 years old.
He is doing very, very well in school, he’s been complimented by all his teachers on his manners, and his Dad and Mon are very pround of his sense of self and his sense of responsibility. Incidentally Melissa’s brother saves his allowance, has been for several years. His stated reason? He’s saving for a house and a F150 four wheel drive pick up.
How do I know this stuff? I Melissa’s dad. And I want to state emphatically, I’m very, very proud of Melissa, The way she has blossomed as a woman, and the respect she has for her Mom.
I just love Melissa’s musings and writings. She has been very gifted ( You should have read the article she wrote when My father died). Very detailed and accurate, 5 pages long and she was in Grade 1!
So if you don’t like what she has writ, Go Fugg yerself! (I put that last statement there, Princess so you would know I actually wrote it!)
Love you Baby girl!
Dad,
Welcome to the internet, and I love you too.
Ok, seriously Seien, you are utterly ridiculous. What right do you have to criticize someone you don’t even know? You brag about you’re high intelligence, you’re violin playing and blah blah blah. You may be book smart but being book smart and having common sense are two different things. Obviously, you have no common sense and if you were as advanced and as smart as you claim to be you wouldn’t be judging someone you don’t even know. My Mother raised me the exact same way and do you know what it taught me? It taught me to be grateful for the things I have, It taught me respect and the value of actually working for something instead of having it handed to me. I am the mother of a six month old little girl, who is my world and my everything. I too am going to pass on this wisdom, I am going to do everything in my power to make sure she realizes the very same lesson that my mother taught me. Respect. Something that your upbringing has obviously not taught you. By the way, I just happend to stumble upon your journal Melissa and I absolutely love it! So from a fellow geek, I give you love! :D
It was very amazing until I got to the part where you called yourself a retard. Obviously your mom did not teach you tolerance or manners. :-)
Carol,
She taught me that there are no power in words unless we put them there. There’s a very big difference between someone who is mentally handicapped and a retard in my world. One of them is not the other.
She also taught me not to cover my passive aggressive statements up by tacking a smiley on the end of them.
I’m sending this link to my 22-year-old son. He might be almost ready to appreciate it! (You wrote this with humor and I love it.)
There is nothing passive about my aggression. And just exactly WHO do you think the word ‘retard’ is referring to? Who is the butt of that joke? My daughter’s MEDICAL diagnosis is retardation, so when you sling that word around, You *are* making fun of people with retardation. And words do have power. They have to the power to change people’s perceptions one way or another. If you lived with the constant prejudice against people with disability you would be able to see that, but you live in your own little world oblivious to the harm/pain you inflict with that word.
I think the community where the name originated knows when it’s being insulted, or not.
Do you hurl racial slurs as well?
Maybe someday you will learn to understand that tagging a smiley face on AN INSULT directed at SOMEONE’S MOTHER lacking in how they raised them, and is thus, a very indirect and PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE MEANS OF INSULTING THEM.
Here, I’ll give you an example:
‘Obviously, your mother failed to teach you how to read a comment properly :)’
Did that smiley put there make you feel better Carol? Did it make the above statement allllll better? No? Oh. Huh. Amaaaaaaazing!
It is the people like YOU which give the words power. You are giving it power because you’re sitting here all upset on the internet and not willing to listen to what I said and then turning around and insinuating that I might hurl racial slurs.
I don’t, Carol. But thanks for bringing in a subject that has nothing to do with what you were originally talking about. Let’s throw in some animal abuse, arson and baby killing just for fun? That’ll help endear you to me and want to even remotely spend five seconds listening to you! Fantastic idea on how to present your case and win at getting people to read your comments on the internet! Yes, yes, brilliant idea.
I have spent a good part of my life surrounded by fantastic people with mental disabilities. Not ONCE have a ever considered the above moniker a reasonable name to call a mentally handicapped person. I think the fact that ‘retardation’ is still a medical term is OBTUSE and OUTDATED and BARBARIC. I also know who I am referring to when I use the word. I know precisely who I am referring it, and it ISN’T someone with a mental disability. Isn’t that amazing, Carol? But since you’re so busy rally your troops and assuming you know, PRECISELY, what that word means to me, and thus–live in my head and understand my EXACT thoughts–far better than I do apparently!– I won’t bother explaining. You know all, right Carol? That must be a very difficult thing to live with all the time. My sympathies.
My world is vast and warm and wonderful, filled with amazing people who love me and I love in return. But again, you’re so busy trying to white-knight a cause and tell me to be nice, while systematically insulting me, my world, TELLING ME how I am using a word like you even remotely have the right to tell another person how to perceive things, insisting I have no idea about the prejudice without ever asking if I have, that I just don’t have the time to bother you with all of this silly stuff.
You’re obviously a busy woman policing the entire internet to tell everyone how they should think before they say a word. That’s a full time job.
The only one that is helping spread hate right at this split second is you.
For someone preaching ‘tolerance’ and ‘manners,’ you have a long way to go.
Good luck in your endeavors. I’m sure they’ll be fruitful.
:) :D :) ^_^
Thanks Barbara, I am very grateful that people can see that and that you love it!
ROTFL!!!!! My view of you has totally changed..you try flinging ‘retard’ around your ‘friends’ and their families who are retarded and see what kind of reception you get there, baby. ;-)
The only reason the term is archaic and barbaric is because stupid people like you continue to USE IT as a slur claiming its not an insult to the developmentally disabled. It was simply a medical dx, ALL the negatives have come from it being used as an insult. When I hear ‘retardation’ or ‘Down Syndrome” I think of my daughter and have nothing but love an respect for her. There is no negative connotation to the word except the one given to it by people like YOU who use her medical dx as a way to insult other people and make my daughter feel stupid.
Say what ever YOU want- when you say retard, you ARE insulting anyone who has a developmental disability. Soon ‘developmental Disability’ or “learning disabled’ will be the new ‘retard’ in fact, have already heard it used as an insult on Grey’s Anatomy just this season- course I am sure they weren’t referring to MY daughter with the slur, but some other retard. ;-)
Using that word is *exactly* the same as using a racial slur, has the *exact* same power. Using that word is referring to someone with a developmental disability and all of us in the DD community know it in spades and also know the power it holds with regards to getting opportunity for our kids. Anyone who uses it, is NOT a warm person, and that goes double when you are told how the people for whom the name is referring to receive that word.
http://wn.com/The_New_R-word_is_Respect
http://davehingsburger.blogspot.com/2008/08/r-rated.html
http://www.specialolympics.org/spread-the-word-to-end-the-word_resources.aspx
http://www.disabilityisnatural.com/images/PDF/semantics.pdf
If you *still* think retard is not an insult/racial slur at people with a DD, just start googling retard and see how it’s used.
You are the epitome of ignorance and arrogance to tell someone who lives this that the insult is all in my head somehow…and that a word derived from the medical dx my daughter carries is not related to people like her. You also seem to have some serious anger issues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoqaNG0Ozqc
To make this even more blatantly clear since you don’t seem to get it, Carol ;-): You are giving power to this word with every comment and every crusade. You are sitting here and telling me how I should also give this word the same power it has in your life, into mine, the exact same hate. Excuse me? No, thank you. I don’t want that word to have that sort of power to hurt, therefore, I am not going to. I don’t want your version of hate in my life. I don’t want anything to do with it. And the fact that you are over here trying to convince me to give this word the same sort of power it has in your life right now is amazing to me. Why would I ever, ever want to do this?
Carol, I just want to personally thank you for doing my job for me with this comment. ;-) And for proving my points. And for all the extra traffic you’ve brought to this post about my mother, who thank god, was nothing like you at all and who taught me that valuable lesson that words only have power over you IF YOU LET THEM. And I don’t, and still won’t <3