Standing on my own

Last week on the radio, I heard a caller call a radio psychologist because she was being harassed by friends and a family for talking to her son who was an eighteen-year-old freshman in college too frequently. Either she or her husband spoke to their son for a few minutes every evening, just to check in. Often it was the son who initiated the calls. But many people they knew, were telling them they were keeping their son from spreading his wings and becoming his own man. The doctor, Ray Guarendi, encouraged the mother to maintain the relationship with her son, and to ignore critics who probably had their own motivations. Now since this was the week between Christmas and New Year's the show was a rebroadcast from earlier in the fall, just a few weeks into the school year, otherwise I might have called in to offer support to this mother, and take his point a little bit further.

You see from the time I moved out of my parents house when I was eighteen, I probably went no more than forty-eight hours without talking to my mom on the phone. Sure there were exceptions, like vacations that took us out of the country. But other than that we chatted pretty much everyday. Like I said, the last time I really lived in my parents house I was eighteen. By the time I was twenty-one, I wasn't even relying on them for any financial support. I was paying my own rent, my car and insurance payments. At twenty-three, I became a home owner. I have cooked and hosted nearly every major holiday meal at least once, including Thanksgiving for 22. I have been laid-off, owned a business, and quit working all together so I could stay home and raise my children. I have been married to a wonderful man for nearly ten years, and the two of us have been through hell and back together. We've moved half-way across the country and back. And all without any monetary support from the parents who I talked to nearly everyday.

I'm not saying this to brag on my accomplishments, because I think they are very ordinary. My point is my relationship with my parents, allowed me to spread my wings and be my own person. I knew that both my mother (and my father) would always be there as a sounding board for any idea or situation that arose. We didn't always agree, I didn't always follow their advice. Sometimes that worked out, sometimes it didn't. But I always knew I could rely on them for honesty, for humor, for love.

Today marks six months since the last conversation I had with my mom. It was either that the next time she had my daughter for a week, I wanted her to adhere more closely to a normal bedtime schedule or to tell her a cute comment Tee had made about her Mary statue. I talked to her twice that day that I can remember, and I've spent a lot of time trying to remember. The next morning she was killed just after 5:00 am.

Although I no longer accidentally dial her number, there are so many things I want to tell her about. So many times, I wish I could ask her opinion. Or just hear her voice. And I know that the strong relationship I had with my mother, not only helped me to become the strong, independent woman I am, it has also, for the last six months, been the foundation that has kept me from completely falling apart.