a mother's son

I’m supposed to be doing several things today, including promoting my new book, Gnashing Teeth, the next book in our Star Trek meets Firefly series of space operas. I would greatly appreciate it if you checked it out.

It’s great!

I also owe all of you the next chapters in my Book of the New Sun slowread. In fact, I’ve owed you all the next chapters for two weeks now. Unfortunately, that’s also not coming today. But next week, we’ll just wrap up the rest of The Shadow of the Torturer. So if you’re not finished yet, try to read the rest by next Thursday.

I could give you a lot of different reasons for the delay but I’ll let this essay stand in place of all of that, or as its own explanation.

I’ve written about my dad here and here. My mother’s in there too, of course. But maybe these are a bit of background.

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I remember your voice.

I always will. I remember it like a time of day. Like the backbone to every memory that’s within me. Your voice. That husky brush of life sweeping over and through me.

I hear it in my son’s voice. The way he calls me daddy reminds me of the child you were, the one impossible to know. But I see you when I hear his voice. The depth of it coming out of his tiny chest, his little mouth. And I see you as the girl you must’ve been, your parents laughing at this big rich voice coming out of this little child.

My first memory is of you.

So many memories of my childhood carry your voice in the background.

You were always there. You’ve always been there.

The foundation to all that I am.

Even when you didn’t like me.

Even when I didn’t like you.

And I remember the days when I found it so hard to say that I loved you.

It wasn’t your fault. Wasn’t something you did. But I think of those days and I could weep for you. For me. Both of us. Tied together with one of us giving so much and the other giving so little.

I’m sorry.

I didn’t know. Couldn’t know.

And maybe you don’t remember.

I hope you don’t.

I hope you never once thought about the times you said that you loved me over the phone and I didn’t say it back. All those years I spent so far away.

What I admire most about you is your strength.

I don’t think I understood that before. I don’t know, even still, if I appreciate just how strong you are. How of all the people I have ever known, you are the one who has always refused to break, to shatter, to pity herself.

You used to tell my that I looked exactly like my dad but that I was like you. My face is what it is. I cannot change it. Cannot deny it. Anyone who has ever looked upon me has seen the face of my father.

But I don’t think I understood what you meant all those times when you said that I was like you. I thought you meant that we were both literate and stylish, curious and interested.

But if I have your heart, I’m thankful. I’m thankful to you. Thankful in so many ways and for so many things that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to express them in full. And so I write the sketch of it here, where you’ll never see it. Sharing it with people who will never know you. Who have never heard your name or seen your face.

I admire you.

I don’t think I’ve ever met someone with the strength of character and heart that you have. In so many ways, life should’ve broken over you. Shattered you beneath all the many heels that trample upon us daily. And yet you remain. You keep walking. Standing tall, even when you feel small and broken.

More than that, you forgive.

And I’m only understanding now that I learned all of this from you. For most of my life, I believed my capacity to forgive and to soldier on was something I learned as a response to all of you. The travails of family and all that. A reaction to a childhood and life spent among you and dad, among my siblings.

But I see now that I learned from watching you.

From seeing the way you didn’t break.

Because I know you have felt broken.

I was there.

My very first memory.

My life breaking through the shroud of time and locking onto you as you sat there on that chair, crying, the news that your father had died still echoing in your ears. I came to you then and just climbed in your lap.

I held you and you held me.

And I remember your voice.

I remember the pain of what happened to your family after Bernie died. I remember the toll it took on you.

The anger. The sorrow.

And still you gave them love. Even now, your mother reaches out to you, even after all she did to you. And knowing the canyon she carved between the two of you, you forgive her daily. You go to her and be who she needs, even when it’s hard and unfair and uncivilized.

Duty.

Another word I will always associate with you. And it’s one I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say. But you are there, dutifully, for everyone. All the time. Even when you’re hurt or sick or depressed or anxious, you get up, show up, and smile even when you feel like crying, even when you wish you could scream.

And I learned that from you.

That you show up for relationships. For family. For friends. Even when you don’t want to. Even when you feel you don’t need to. Because relationships are life. In the end, they’re all we have and they will keep us afloat. And you show up for other people because someday you will need them to show up for you.

To hold your hand.

To be there as you stand at the precipice of pain and sorrow and oblivion and time.

I have learned so much from you.

But it’s you who most taught me to be a man. To be a person.

It’s your heart I carry in my chest.

It’s your blood within me.

And I’m proud to be your son.

I’m proud of you.

And I know I still don’t say it enough but I do love you.

I will always love you.

I will never be able to give back all that you’ve given me. But I hope to impart it to my own children. To give them all that you’ve given me.

And I’m so forever thankful that you’re my mother and that I get to be your son.