Mothering

After telling people that I’m adopted, the most common reply is a look of shock and then some variation on the question, “So, do you know your birthmother?”  Now, I’m smart enough to understand the question, but I believe that’s an unfortunate phrase, because in every way that matters my “adoptive” mother gave birth to me.  Using the traditional parlance, without my birthmother, I wouldn’t be alive right now.  But without my adoptive mother, the real mother of my life, I wouldn’t have this life.  I wouldn’t be who I am, and that means a whole lot more to me.

When I had just entered my teenaged years, Ocean Pacific or “Op” shorts were the must-have clothing item for the well dressed Southern California boy.  And like any fashion trend, they were expensive.  We were well-off, but not extravagant, and an overpriced pair of corduroy shorts that I would just outgrow in a year or two would be an extravagance.  But it was my mother who recognized how “important” those shorts were to a gangly budding gay boy with a mop of dirty blond hair struggling to “fit in” with the other boys, who had already given me a few choice and very hurtful nicknames.

So she did what only a mother would do.

Now J.C. Penney was a department store in the next town over, Burbank, where all of my clothes that weren’t hand-me-downs from my cousin Jim, who was exactly two years older than me and about the same height and build, came from.  My mom had seen an ad in the paper that Penney’s had knock-off corduroy shorts that looked just like Op-s, minus the logo on the left thigh of course, at a reasonable price. 

Mom and I never “spoke” about it, before or after.   But I knew, I have always known, what she did.  And why.

The point of that story was to demonstrate that “mothering” has nothing to do with biology, giving birth, or really even gender.  It is about love, and sacrifice.  It is quiet and does not make demands.  It understands even when others don’t.  It goes the extra mile.  It is supportive, encouraging, and unwavering in its optimism – mothering wants the best for you and will stop at nothing to deliver it.

And that was my mom. This website is dedicated in loving memory to her on this the third anniversary of her passing.
(click here for the co-dedication to my father)

I got the call from my sister Patricia, who was with her, that night just before midnight; it was not unexpected, but it was still shocking.  And devastating. I will always be grateful to my boyhood friend Mike who, the Friday before, because I no longer drive or travel easily, drove from Glendale to Palm Springs (2 hours) to pick me up, then back to West Covina (1.5 hours) where my mother had been sent to a skilled nursing facility so I could be with her one last time, then back to Palm Springs (1.5 hours) to drop me home, then back to Glendale (2 hours) to his house; that’s seven hours of almost nonstop Southern California driving in one day!

My sister was able to bring Mom home that weekend so that she would be in comfortable, familiar surroundings.  The prognosis wasn’t good and we all knew it.