Lessons I Learned From My Mom

I've always been a mama’s boy. 

I would pretend to be sick in 2nd grade, so I could stay home instead, cuddle with my mom, and watch daytime TV like Captain Kangaroo, Laverne & Shirley, Mr. Rogers, and Big Valley.

When we had field trips at school, she would volunteer to drive.

My mom's parents were immigrants, hard workers. Her dad came over from Greece when he was 16 years old and didn’t speak any English. Her mom left her home on the island of Ikaria when she was just 12 years old to be a nanny for an English family in Egypt. Her family needed the money to survive.

When my dad was dying, we celebrated his last birthday together. My mom sang to him. If I could show you a video of that, you'd know all you'd need to know about what unconditional, lifelong love looks like. 

My dad was handsome. He looked like a crooner. Like the Rat Pack. Handsome. Athlete. Professor.

My mom was his queen. 

Queen Elizabeth.

My mom taught high school English in Oakland before she had my sister and me.

My mom created all the magic. She baked cakes from scratch with trains or ballerinas on them, cooked for 50 people every Christmas at our house, let us have slumber parties, and drove us to piano and saxophone lessons.

She listened so attentively and patiently, without judgment. She took us on trips around the US, walking through the streets of NYC. Walking. Always walking. Paris, Athens, and Mexico City. 

My mom has been to something like one hundred countries. She drives a 20 year old car because she couldn't give a f—- about cars. She cares about experiences, memories, connections, and magic.

She used to sing ‘Top of the World’ by the Carpenters. That was my bedtime song.

Whenever I hear that song now, I think of love.

She was there to hold me when my heart was broken the first time, proofread college essays, play board games, laugh, teach us how to be kind to all living things, show us how to be empathetic, and how to help others. She taught us how to be patient.

She has always been there. Like an angel. Loving my sister and me so unconditionally, so fiercely, so carefully. 

My dad would tell anybody who would listen just how much he loved my mom.

I can understand why.