My Hero

 



My mother was a stay at home mom, and a great one at that. She got up with my father when it was dark out and made him dinner and packed his lunch, every single day that I can remember. Then she cooked for my older sister and got her off to high school, with me in middle school and with my younger sister in elementary school. And while we were gone she cleaned the house, shopped and did all that other underappreciated stuff like having dinner on the table at almost the same time every night. Amongst a million other tasks.  And my mother didn’t just help us; she helped girls in trouble every day. Girls whose own mothers and fathers had turned their backs on them due to an unplanned pregnancy.  She drove miles and miles, at all hours and in all weather, to help girls who had no one to turn to before calling an anonymous telephone number in the phone book. As her daughters, none of us could understand what that was like, to have to turn to a stranger before your own family.  And those girls could have gotten anyone coming to pick them up, but they were lucky enough to get my mother. Who would listen to them and not judge them no matter what they said, and they said a lot. Something about my mom made these girls want to talk, to tell her details they had never told anyone. She understood them and supported them, because she believed in the decision they had made to keep their baby, even though that was sometimes the hardest and least popular choice.

Over months, she would help them find housing, diapers, food, a job. Or sometimes it was just providing an ear to listen with. And slowly, these girls would get on their feet, and leave the nest. They would fall out of contact, moving on with their life with their child and my mom would continue to answer the phone that rang at 2am and run to help a nameless, unknown girl. But then my mom would get a school picture in the mail of a smiling little girl, or a delivery announcement for a baby boy, and she would share it with us with a smile of pride, like they were her kids. And in a way, I knew that they were. Because they, much like me, wouldn’t be here without her.

  I love you, mom. Happy Mother’s Day.