My Mom; The Superhuman

My mom is a superhero, and I'm not just saying that because she is my mom. She is superhuman. She has super strength; she can lift a bed with one hand. She can make people feel peace; I once saw her breath peace over my tiny baby cousin as she gasped for air from feeling a pain too overwhelming for a baby. She has this amazing ability to make things happen; all my siblings and I had to do was think about being hungry, and my mom would have a full course meal already prepared. She could stretch, kind of like the mother form the Incredibles. I watched her stretch a 20-dollar bill and make it enough to feed a family of 5. I also once saw her come out of a horrible car crash, unscathed, not one single scratch, like who does that?

Her most significant power yet, is the one where she acts like you never even hurt her. Being her oldest child, it was almost like we grew up together. In the process of her maturing, she hurt me, and in the process of me maturing, I hurt her. As soon as I realized that the release I felt from hurting her with my words turned into a nasty addiction with no pleasure, I stopped. I stopped using my words to hurt her, but before I had even stopped, she had already forgiven me.

Unfortunately, like all heroic characters, there comes a day where you see them for who they are. The first time I realized my mother was human; she sat in her bed, with her face in her hands, sobbing. I peaked at her through her bedroom door. It wasn't my first time seeing her cry, she cried at church and funerals, but this time was completely different. Her back arched almost as if it was admitting defeat, and I saw her red cape slip away. The lasso of truth she carried that made me and my siblings buckle at the knees diminished and transformed into a piece of tissue that she used to blow her nose and dry her tears. The S on her chest took on the shape of a heart, but not just any heart, a broken one. My mother wasn't superhuman; she couldn't always handle everything the world, and her children threw at her. Sometimes she did get sad, lonely, and weary. My young mind couldn't comprehend seeing her like that. I thought to myself, what was her kryptonite?

It turns out, my mother's kryptonite was life. It took me living just a little more to figure that out. My mother would often tell the story of my birth, how at 15 years old, she navigated the New York City Transit system by herself for the first time. She made her way to the abortion clinic, and as she entered through the doors, a forceful kick from my tiny foot overwhelmed her with love and made her change her mind. She believed that I was important and worth living, no matter how many people tried to convince her otherwise, my mother believed in me.

I went on to learn more about her; my mother was molested and endured physical and emotional abuse in relationships throughout her life. I learned that she experienced years of rejection from family and others because of being a young mom, sometimes her skin color, or her natural ability to stand out. These were all details hidden from me, details that only removing her cape would reveal. Her letting me in confirmed that she wasn't superhuman, she was just a human with super strength, super love, and super faith in God.

She inspires me every day to keep going. She pushes me, and every time I feel like giving up, she doesn't say do it because I did it, she says keep going because I KNOW THAT YOU CAN. My mother has been there when I thought life was entirely over, and she has been there on my happiest of days. Her presence is a constant reminder that it's not about the superhero glory moments that make a person, but it's about the strength in the moments that your kryptonite overwhelms you, and you decide not to give up. I know everyone may think their mom is a superhero, but my mom is. She isn't superhuman, but she has super strength, super love, and super faith in God, and because of that, I'm one of the most blessed people in the world.