Just Me and My Mother

Maya Hand

(May, 2011)  One year ago, when I was nine, I wrote a piece of poetry about me and my mother. I found it stuffed in my drawer with a few of my books. I tugged it out and decided to include it in this year’s May edition as a gift for my mother.

Just Me and My Mother

We sit, and swing, and sway through air,
We hear as a soft melody, the time that we share.
We sit and look and watch the stars,
We see a bright one, maybe Mars!
We hug and squeeze and whisper soft words, that lift each other’s hearts,
Make them soar like the birds.

We watch a cat, who chases a moth, who flies away, Thinking he is so tough.
He flits and flutters and flies through thin air, knowing something,
Just something’s behind him...it’s there.
Every once in a while, we will look back at each other,
We hold hands, giving kisses, just me and my Mother.

When I look back on this poem from a year ago, I am a bit shy and a bit self-conscientious, because the poem seems young and a bit simple. No matter what I now think of these words from a nine-year old me, I find that there is a truth present then that I still find and think about today and every day, and that is how special and loving my mom is. My mom really goes out of her way to spend time with me to help me to pursue my dreams and help me through my struggles and worries. She takes time out of hers to walk me through problem solving steps with whatever is on my mind and answer all of my questions. She makes tiny things like driving to the grocery store and looking through our Tuesday folders special. Whenever I am sad or stressed and she laughs or smiles, it makes my day.

Since modern is one of my favorite styles of dance, she took me to see the Alvin Ailey dance troop perform in Washington D.C. She also took me to listen to live Jazz at a restaurant in Ellicott City, knowing that I have always wanted to experience jazz rhythms in person, with the beat of drums from a stage and horns filling the air. As I wrote in an earlier article, she took me to see Maya Angelou speak for my birthday this past year. We have made so many memories together (many of them are "funny at the time" kinds of things) and sayings like "M&M time," for mommy and Maya time. We have had laughs together, talks together and many squeezes. There are times when we just look at each other for a while and I feel happy. I feel that I can tell her everything and she always makes everything seem like it will be okay. It’s absolutely amazing how every day of my life, bad or good, hard or simple, my mom has, is, and will ALWAYS be there for me. Whenever I come home from a hard day at school every now and then, I can bury my head in her arms and cry and she will make everything fine again. There is nothing that can possibly explain how much I love my mother except maybe feeling the same way about yours, though I don’t think that could exist...

Many times I take my mom for granted, but later think and wonder at how much she does for me. She pays for me to go to school, pays for the food I eat, makes me breakfast, lunch and dinner, buys me clothes, paints my room, takes me out places, checks my homework, pays for my summer camps, cleans the whole house (including my room at times), and I could just go on and on. It is hard to think about how hard it would be to have three kids roaring through the house, throwing their stuff everywhere that you just cleaned, you still haven’t made their lunches, you have twenty-five clients who want their websites next week, everyone is about to miss the bus, you still need to help one study spelling, one study social studies and the other needs something for show-and-tell, you still need to pay all of the bills, a twenty-sixth client is coming today to have a conference about how they want a new logo because their other one "had too much detail," you haven’t cleaned the house yet, you were up until 2:15 last night organizing the playhouse, and your are just about to pass out.

But somehow, mom makes it – she just does. She helps us study, makes our lunches, gets Nathaniel’s show-and-tell, gets us to the bus on time, cleans the house, gets her client work done, makes her twenty-sixth client happy, pays the bills, goes through the day exhausted... she just does... and she doesn’t ever let on how tired she must be. When we get home from school, the first thing she does is smiles at us, gives us a big, bright smile. She squeezes us tightly, and that’s that. That is what makes her so amazing. She is amazing. I couldn’t have a better mother.