I’m perched at the quiet bar of a favorite local restaurant, watching Peyton battle Eli while I work and write and drink a tasty IPA. The crazy awful autumn monsoon that is causing so much grief in the state is taking a little break, but there’s no question that another downpour is in the offing.
Watching a Broncos game, when it’s toasty inside and chilly and ominous outside, always reminds me of my mother. And today, on her birthday, I’m thinking about her a lot.
When I was 10, we’d been living in Denver for a couple of years, but my dad was offered a great opportunity in LA, and we were preparing to pick up and move again. While my father was already in California on the new job, Mom was hard at work raising three kids and trying to get the house sold. Every Sunday, my mother and I would watch the Broncos make their way, game by game, toward the playoffs and then the Super Bowl. She might be folding clothes, or puttering around in the kitchen, but it was always just the two of us, cheering on the Orange Crush Defense, a mishmash of joy and disappointment as we geared up for a move away from the city we’d grown to love. We all desperately missed my father, and those moments of excitement and cheer provided little windows of light in that long winter.
Some adults can tie their love of a sports team to watching games with their dad (which is why the Dodgers will always have a place in my heart) or to pride in their hometown (which, with our itinerant ways, I didn’t have growing up). But I attribute my affection for the Denver Broncos to the happy memories of Mom and me yelling at the television as the fire in the flagstone fireplace warmed our living room, the girls playing quietly somewhere in the house.
This has been a rocky summer for the Elkins family, between my mother losing her husband in July and Dad’s fight against cancer intensifying. I was in Sacramento three times in as many months (my parents live about 10 minutes away from each other, though they moved there several years apart). I would stay with my mother, but spend the days with my father. She understood, and even encouraged the extra time with him, knowing how important it is to his health and wellbeing to have his kids and grandkids there with him as much as possible.
Even in the days following her husband’s passing, when my sisters and I rushed to Sacramento to be there for her, my mother encouraged us to make time for Dad. It’s her strength and resolve in times like these that can make me forget that she needs us just as much as our father does.
I think I’ve become a better son by striving to be a better father. I’m so vulnerable as a dad, and that ever-present parental ache has made me much more sensitive to my own parents’ needs.
Last April, my mother and I had a pretty intense conversation about my upbringing, where I brought to the fore some important moments of my life she had forgotten or repressed. My intention wasn’t to open old wounds — I’ve long since let go of the mistakes my parents made when they were in their early 20s — but to straighten out what I saw as a skewed set of memories. My timing was breathtakingly terrible, dropping a series of bombshells as I was driving her to the airport, which meant that she had no choice but to let my comments marinate on her two-hour flight home.
I still feel awful for my poor impulse control; for giving in to a moment of pique and causing a shitstorm in my mother’s heart before kissing her goodbye and sending her on her way.
A couple days later, she sent me a heartfelt email in response to what I’d said, and I read it with surprise, not realizing I’d unleashed such pain and guilt. It was too deep to respond to without further consideration, so I moved on with my day, intent on ameliorating things when I had time to reply in a thoughtful way. And then the email was buried by more emails, and then I forgot about it, and then...
...my mom called me, distraught that she’d upset me so much that I’d stopped talking to her.
Oh, the guilt.
I reassured her that I wasn’t upset, just that I hadn’t had a moment to respond to what she’d written.
Um...and then I forgot about the email again, until I woke up this Friday morning, nearly six months later, on the eve of Yom Kippur, which is the last possible moment to ask forgiveness of those we’ve wronged in the past year.
Funny that my mother called me that day, when my full intention was to reach out to her. I told her how sorry I was for never replying to the email — that I was too busy in the moment when I read it, and that, frankly, I’d forgotten about it until that day. Then I said, “But here’s what you should know — I forgave you and Dad a long time ago for the mistakes you made when you were in your twenties. I’m not angry or upset, and I’ve been over it for a long time. If anything, I’m grateful, because you’ve made me more aware of the ways my own anger manifests itself when I’m with Simone.”
My mom thanked me for saying so, but told me she would forever feel guilty for their screw-ups, my parents out of their league and ill-prepared at their young ages.
I totally get that. My slip-ups and mishaps when it comes to parenting my own child will forever manifest themselves in my head at the most inopportune times, nearly paralyzing me with shame. We are so vulnerable as parents, from the second our children come squalling into the world, and we’re wracked with guilt within moments of their birth. There’s just no way around it.
And no amount of me telling Mom that I’m okay, that I wasn’t permanently damaged by her occasional outbursts of anger or by the richly deserved wooden spoon to the ass, and that my own consciousness of that congenital rage keeps me from making those same mistakes, will assuage her guilt.
What kills me is that, no matter how wonderful she has been to me all my life, how non-judgmental and patient, how forbearing, supporting me with love and unconditional confidence in my ability to find my way to the light, she will always live with the guilt of mistakes she made when I was a child. When we were both children, really.
It’s so lonely to live away from my mother and father and sisters. Though we talk often, and they are always on my mind, I’m disconnected from the day-to-day, not able to comfort or be comforted long distance. I don’t have a spouse to help carry the weight during these difficult times, and my first priority is to protect Simone, which means I’ve been distracted; wrapped up in my own experience during this challenging time for my family. So it wasn’t until just a week or so ago that it hit me how much my mother is hurting right now, and the devastation she’s dealing with every single day, alone and missing her husband so deeply.
So, Mom, I know I sent you two pounds of Mary Janes and a pack of black licorice, but this is your real birthday present: I promise to be a better son in the coming year, to not take you for granted, to make more effort to spend time with you and to be there for you.
As a parent, I know you want to tell me I’m already doing fine as a son, and that you don’t need another birthday present. But, as a son, I’m writing this with a heart full of love and care and admiration.
Let me be there for you the way you always have been for me.
I love you, Mom.
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