I Wonder if My Mom Knew It

I wonder if my mother knew it.

You’re alive, you’re reading this, when you were a teenager, did you have dreams and aspirations?

Since then, has life happened to you?

I think I get it now. When I was a kid, I had no idea. None of us do. I had no idea of my mother’s story. I heard bits and pieces of it, but I didn’t get it.

I think, that's the point.

Life is meant to be experienced, from beginning to end.

Come what may.

Look at the light in her eyes. See the hope. What was she thinking in that moment? Was it,

Smile, beautiful!

What do I want to study in college?

Does Steve like me?

Or was it,

This is so fake.

Get me out of here.

I can't believe my Dad left us.

Whatever her mindset was at the time, my mother in all her human-ness, grew up to be a person that taught me an important lesson.

Keep going. Don't stop. Never give up.

Seriously, it was around the time of this photo, my grandmother got divorced and then was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). A long-term death sentence.

Death comes for us all, but to know it will come for you sooner than others?

Dang.

My grandmother turned to alcohol. Those nights turned to long nights. Turned to a fourteen year version of my future mother riding her bike up to the VFW, putting the bike in the back of the station wagon, going inside to retrieve my grandmother, escort her to the car, and then drive home.

My mother went on to be an alcoholic herself. She barely passed high school. Met my dad in a bowling alley. Went on to marry and divorce three times. One marriage-divorce short of her father's marriage-capades.

She dreamed dreams of becoming a veterinarian. She would have been a great vet.

An amazing vet.

Instead, she got married two years after high school and pregnant with her oldest child, only to lose him 20 or so weeks into gestation. If it wasn't for my brother's death,

I wouldn't be here.

Dang.

About six weeks after losing "Luke," my mother got pregnant with me. She kept going. My mother would go on to get pregnant seven more times. She lost four more and gave birth to four. In total, my mother has 10 children. Five of us are running amuck here on earth while the other five, well, we hope we will get to meet them someday.

Out of the five of us, I am the only boy. The oldest. And probably the favorite. LOL

There were some things my mother stopped doing. She finally beat her alcohol addiction. If one could ever "beat it." She hasn't been drunk in over twenty years. She's had a sip of wine, once or twice. She quit smoking cigarettes too. She quit marriage.

She didn't stop her love for rescuing animals.

She has rescued, housed or re-homed so many animals. Between the five of her human children, we lost count of the amount animal-children she has rescued. Currently, she has seven cats and three dogs. All rescues.

As an adult, she regulalry found herself in a VFW too. And when I was 14 years old, I was there too. Except, she was tending the bar not holding it down, while I cleaned the dishes at each Friday Night Fish Fry.

This is where my worth ethic came from, to keep going, never stop, and never give up.

At the age of nine, I helped with the family paper route.

Fourteen, washing dishes.

Sixteen, custom landscaping with my uncle.

Twenty-one, I was a senior in college, working as a mentor, coach, and barista, all while playing on the school's baseball team.

Nothing in my life has equated to "quick success." Anything worth talking about has come with frustration, hurdles, and the necessity to overcome.

In a way, I suppose that's the part life that makes the other parts so enjoyable.

I kept going. I finished college and went on to graduate school.

I got married. Divorced. Re-married. This one stuck. We are going on eight years of marriage. We have two wonderful sons. Grandkid numbers three and four for my mother.

I hustle, usually having multiple streams of income.

My mother didn't teach me about the downfalls of financial debt, but as she has grown, I too have grown. Debt has been a part of both of our stories, but it is something we now have a better handle on, eliminating it as we work our way to financial freedom.

I used to not want to be compared to my mother's or my father's missteps. Now, I leverage the similarities in our journeys for the sake of a better tomorrow for my kids and her grandkids.

My mom learned to stop trying to control her story.

It something I am just beginning to grasp.

Often, we cannot help what happens to us. It is in our response where the story is written. My mom came from a broken family. It cycled again in her family. The beauty of redemption and reconciliation is the bringing back together of what was once broken. Not to hide the cracks, but to find a way to bring them back together.

Like my #bossmom, I keep going toward a redemptive story. I don't stop, because story is in its unfolding. I gave up control of the narrative so I don't give up on the beauty of this life.

As a fellow broken and healing human being, I may not always fully articulate the gratitude I have for my mother, but I am grateful. If it wasn't for her get-knocked-down-99-times-get up-100, I probably would have stopped growing a long time ago.

None of us know the particulars of what each of our futures hold. My mother didn't know it, but something in her fights to live her best life possible. To play the long game. To not be easily deterred by the immense amount of losses she's experienced.

Good for her.

Good for us.

I am here. I am going. I won't stop or give up.

There's too much story left to experience.