Boss Mom: Lessons I Learned From My Mother

Creativity and Tenacity

At a young age, I was attached to my mother’s hip. A mini version of a wild hearted, intelligent female. She was fiercely competitive, and I often found myself thrust to the center stage, fighting her battles.

For some, Halloween is a holiday filled with fun. For my mother, it was a job. Halloween was an evening for her to express her creativity, and I was her prized show pup.

She would spend half the year designing the perfect costume. When the time came for me to go to school the day of, she’d wake me up extremely early, have me pose for hours, and teach me the history and meaning behind the outfit. How to be the perfect character. How to commit and make it believable.

After all, she had paid meticulous attention to the details, and out of respect for her, I’d have to do the same.

On the Halloween of my kindergarten year, I was a flapper. She loved telling me how painstaking it was for her to find the right dress, one that would come just below my knees, or how difficult the feather and pearls were to attach to the hat.

“Now, when you get to school, remember...” she paused as she drew a mole on my face, which oddly enough would become a reality in my later years, “I put a lot of work into this outfit. A true flapper would never let anyone outshine her. Do you know what that means?”

I hit my coached poses on beat in between the Polaroid flashes and nodded. “Don’t let anyone steal my light.”

“Jazz hands,” she barked.

That morning, I strutted into school, full of 6 year old sass and an unmatched God complex. The other kids ran around, hyped up on sugar and picking their noses. Rolling around in their costumes without any concern or respect for “art”.

I sat down at my desk, crossed my legs, and judged the innocence of my reality, as if trapped in a mini body were a death sentence.

Finally, the teacher called attention to the front of the room, declaring a class picture.

This. Was. My. Moment. The moment I was born for.

The other kids moaned in disagreement, but I was warmed up from the morning photoshoot with my mother. I was already at the front of the class, impatiently waiting for these small animals to get it together.

The audacity to not take this seriously was mind boggling, but I rather enjoyed standing there, alone, in my spotlight.

Soon the corn syrup induced children rushed to the front, almost seemingly at once like rabid squirrels, and I was pushed to the back. Panic began to sink in as I got closer and closer to the wall, disappearing into the paint itself. Insecurity washing over me, I froze.

Like a whisper, I heard my mother’s voice in my head, “Don’t let anyone steal your light...”

The panic turned to anger, manifesting itself into sheer will and slight narcissism.

“On the count of 3 children,” cried the teacher.

Dear God, my window of opportunity was closing. I took a deep breath and began to plow my way through the group of kids, pushing and shoving my way to the front. Open palming their crusty, chocolate smeared faces, swatting off their sticky fingers as they pawed at me in protest.

“HEY! That’s not fair! I was here first!” screamed a Becky. “Teacher, Tina pushed me,” complained another, to which my reply was the death stare I learned from my mother.

None of them mattered. I had a mission. Upfront and center!

Continuing to shove my way through the sea of children, I broke through just in time to strike a pose and... “SAY CHEESE...”

The bright lights dazzled my eyes, leaving spirits of their memory in my gaze. The adrenaline. The power. I was on a high candy couldn’t provide me with. I was a star!

I continued to go through the series of poses my mother taught me, but there was one problem, the flashing lights had stopped.

My 15 seconds of fame ended as fast as they had begun. To my shock and horror, everyone filed back to their seats as I watched, confused. Still holding a pose. Switching to another as if it would remedy the situation.

Until it was just me standing there.

“Tina.” I heard the teacher say. I matched her glare thinking, “This is my moment. She was waiting for everyone to sit down so she could take pictures of just me. That makes sense.”

“Tina,” she repeated, “please take your seat.”

I stood there dead faced till I got the I won’t ask you again nod. I retreated back to my seat. Defeated.

I was pissed.

Didn’t they know who I was? Or how hard my mother worked on this outfit? How many yard sales she frequented to find the right dress? How she negotiated them down from $14 to $1, because they had the balls to ask for something so ridiculous!?

I was a big fish in a small pond and only I knew it.

“They’ll regret this day. Mark my words.” I thought to myself, as I pulled out my Care Bear pencil case. I plotted my revenge in my diary and planned world domination on unsuspecting booger heads.

Voice and Resilience

My mother’s childhood was rough and she grew up poor. She would tell me about mayonnaise sandwiches and dinner tables made from cardboard boxes. She ran away from home at 15, and while she healed her relationship with her parents, she never returned to the place from which she was raised.

Regardless, she managed to put herself through college and get her degree in psychology. Her first marriage was to a physicist, where she birthed my two brothers.

After she divorced my brothers’ father, she married my father, an engineer.

She was a bright woman and spent her youth modeling for JCPenney and vocalizing her disdain for the war. A popular flower child, and a fan of George Carlin.

We played him so frequently, I might argue he’s my second father.

Mom liked to blast his standup routines and talk about fighting for human rights, along with all the protests she was involved in. The arrests she acquired for standing up for her beliefs never went untold.

The pain she felt when Kennedy died.

Never a day went by where I didn’t hear one of her stories.

My mother was a vocal woman. She spoke her mind proudly, and God be on your side should you try to pin down an underdog in her presence.

I’ve seen the way the world can behave when people are shocked by an incident. You have too.

Sometimes it’s reflected in a prank-like video of children getting kidnapped. Showcasing the real reactions of the people around. Many of them ignoring it, or running in opposite directions. Few stepping in and fighting for the right thing.

That was my mother and my mother’s mother.

Pick on anyone smaller or less fortunate than you, and hell have no fury like those women needing to defend the defenseless.

What a beautiful and admirable trait.

One easily taken for granted by the majority of the world. Good people do exist, but the brave ones willing to put their lives on the line for the truth are rare.

You couldn’t lie to her either.

She had these icy blue eyes that would stare through your soul as she bombarded you with questions, each one getting more specific. You were on trial. Should you choose to be inauthentic, you risked being gracefully beheaded. A slow death to your intellect, and an emotional wounding your ego couldn’t immediately bounce back from.

She was like a pit bull. Once she locked in on you, there was no way to release her grip. If she smelled your fear, her curiosity became unrelenting.

Every time I speak up for myself or others, or tell a grand story that gets some laughs, I sit in meditation with myself and thank both her and my mamaw.

The strong, resilient female storytellers of the family, the warriors of the light.

Intuition and Spirituality

My mother was multi-ethnic, and taught me a lot about our Native American roots.

I learned how to respect nature, animals, and how to find a spirit in everything. I learned that a Pow-Wow and its drum aren’t just a moment of community, but healing.

When things would show up missing in our home, my mother would proclaim it was the little people causing mischief again. “They won’t harm you, just ask them to return your belongings. If they don’t, then remember, they need it more than you.” She’d often say this in between long phone calls with loved ones. Boy, did she love to talk.

“The gift of the gab.” As my father would say.

Our relationship grew strained over the years due to some of her personal struggles.

I began to resent her for being emotionally unavailable to me as I grew up. She wasn’t there for me as I blossomed from a girl to a young woman, and if she was, she would make false accusations regarding my sexual experiences. It didn’t matter that I was a virgin who had never been kissed.

As I turned the corner of my 2nd year of College, I began to heal some of the damage we had incurred. I reached into the dark corners of my closet, pulled out my Native American regalia, and dressed myself.

It had been years since I last wore it, and it was clearly several sizes too small, but I threw it on and headed to the Pow-Wow to surprise her.

After she returned from the opening ceremony, she saw me sitting in the bleachers. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree, and she began to do what she did best, brag.

“This is my daughter, isn’t she beautiful?” Everyone turned to look at me, and I cursed myself for coming in the first place. “Doesn’t she look just like me? Some think we’re sisters.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled out the throw away camera I had stuffed in my bag. “Mom, let’s take a picture.”

That’s the only picture we have together at the Pow-Wow.

The Farewell

My mother taught me that nothing ever dies, it just transforms.

She liked to remind me that it wasn’t just her spiritual belief, but also science. “Energy cannot be created nor destroyed,” she would say, as she chain smoked and gambled online.

I would always walk out of her house reeking like cigarettes and sneezing due to her many cats.

Then came the time for us to say our final goodbyes.

It was a heatwave in August the day she died.

I stood outside in shock after the news. Sweating under the bright afternoon sunshine. Kicking rocks.

She had passed from stage 4 metastatic brain cancer. A battle she wrestled with for nearly a year. She refused to go down without a fight, as usual, but she lost this one.

I stood in our backyard, looking around me, lost and vulnerable. Scared. Angry. I felt like a child again.

Don’t we all feel abandoned when we lose our parents? Our pillars? Nothing can fully prepare you for the obsessive thoughts headed your way.

“Why did I put my career before having a child? Who will help me raise my children? Why did I think I never wanted that? Why did I think it was beneath me to want a family!? Now she’ll never be able to teach them anything with her own hands. Where do we really go when we die?”

The questions flooded me and my heart rate became deafening.

I was disappointed in her.

I blamed her life choices for losing her battle with cancer. I struggled with her selfishness. Her carelessness.

The meaning of life seemed out of reach, and the numbness left me in a haze. My material pursuits seemed trivial in comparison, such as the desire to be a successful actress. All those moments I missed out on for auditions or callbacks I never booked.

I wanted another chance to get into a fight with her and tell her she didn’t understand me. I wanted her back, just so I could ignore one more phone call.

In the midst of my self-absorption, the wind kicked up a fury and knocked me to the present. It left me temporarily demented.

I covered my swollen eyes from the specs of dust pelting me in the face. My hair whipped me, slapping me with hundreds of tiny stings, like needles burying me.

Shortly after came the rain, falling in spite of the sun and with no clouds in sight.

How could these events coexist together? I’d never seen this before.

Was I witnessing the circle of life? Was she returning to her rightful place and giving back to the world she once walked? “Mom!” I yelled, “I hear you.”

“We are all just water.” Said my intuition. “Once we are finished here, we change form and return home.”

I reached out my hands and desperately tried to catch her.

I wanted to hold her one last time, but she slipped through my fingers and fell to the thirsty ground below me. I stared in awe as Mother Nature absorbed her.

A hawk circled above me and called out, pivoting my teary attention towards the sky. It was my mother’s bird. Her lucky omen.

“As above. So below.” I heard.

A monarch butterfly crossed my path and fluttered around me like a small, delicate tornado.

Mom always loved butterflies. Some cultures might tell you they are the spirits of the loved ones we’ve lost. Coming to say hello.

The wind calmed, and the rain ceased. I stood there in a moment of silence with my environment. Dumbfounded. No less broken than before.

Nothing about this moment stopped me from experiencing the grief cycle that I would be forced to surrender to, but time was certainly suspended.

I had never felt so connected to something greater than myself before.

I broke down in tears and returned to the house sobbing.

Slightly comforted and humbled, I dried my face on my sleeves and hurled myself into bed. I struggled for months with her death, as many of us do.

The memories of her gasping for her last breaths of air haunted me.

I even developed an odd obsession with learning about snails as I searched for scientific facts surrounding an afterlife. Nothing satisfied my grief, until 8 months later, when I remembered the day I tattooed a feather under my left arm for her.

She was deep into chemotherapy when I walked in the house and showed her my new artwork. She beamed brightly and squeaked, “You did that for me?”

“Yeah, this way you’ll know I’ll always carry you right under my wing.” I said as we embraced in a long tearful hug.

And just like that, the last memories of my mother began to take a new form.

In my mind’s eye, I no longer saw her gasping for air, but rather her smile. A highlight reel of all the joy she had experienced here on this material plane.

Her laugh, and the true meaning of her life. A life spent searching for love, only to end up learning how to love herself.

I pulled myself from my cave and shuffled into the bathroom to wash my face. I confronted myself in the mirror only to be met with the ghost of my mother.

I gasped in shock.

There she was again. Alive as ever. Staring back at me...

Through me.

My eyes. My smile. My hair. My blood.

In this moment she taught me my final and greatest lesson.

She had left pieces of herself within me, and she was still here, thriving. Inside of my veins, with every beat of my heart. I am her and she is me, and she will always be here watching me.

Fighting for me. Guiding me. Loving me.

Nothing can steal your light.

Not even death.

For it is just the beginning.

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