In honor of Mother’s Day I will share one of my favorite stories of my mom from when I was very little. It had to be sometime in 1978 as I remember the fashions to be terrible. At that time we were living in Lowell in the tiniest of apartments. It was one of those townhouse designs but in the poor part of town. The rent on these buildings were based on your income. It wasn’t until I was older, though, that I realized we were poor. I can’t ever remember wanting for anything.
It was at some point in this home that my mom tossed me down the stairs in our tiny apartment. That’s right, tossed right down the stairs. I can remember it clearly. I was walking down the steps holding my mother’s hand when all of a sudden there was a slip and a mad rush of wind through my hair. I was falling and fastly approaching the bottom of the staircase. The thud of my body hitting the ground was thunderous. The pain unbearable. I looked through watery eyes at my mother and begged an answer to the question as to why she threw me down the steps. I was traumatized.
Through my adult memory’s eye this story is a tad bit different. The stairwell was narrow and steep. My mom was holding my hand to help protect me from falling as I was a young lad of only four years. My skill of decending steps was shaky at best. Toss in that mom’s other hand was filled with a basket of laundry and the risks had at least doubled. That alone gives her reprieve towards my anger. This was not the only thing against us that day, however.
The best part of being little is that you are shielded from grown up things. One of these things is where babies come from. Well, on top of the fact that mom was navigating a narrow and steep stairwell while holding the hand of an unstable young child and balancing a basket of dirty clothes, mom was many months pregnant. Instead of admonishing her I should have thanked her dearly…for not landing on me.
So on this Mother’s Day I want to thank my mom for not crushing a poor little disillusioned boy and for everything else that she has done for me in my 30+ years on this earth.
Happy Mother’s Day to all of you mothers, step-mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts and anyone that is motherly to another. You are appreciated and loved dearly.
