For as long as I can remember, I have always heard, “You look so much like your mother!” or “You sound so much like your mother!”
As a kid, I rolled my eyes. And was promptly scolded.
As an adult, I sit up a little straighter.
You see, someone like my mom is someone you should want to be like. And, along the same lines, one should NEVER roll eyes at someone like my mom (see above for scolding).
I have shared many times how we cannot do our life the way we have done it in the past without my mom’s unwavering help. However, that’s not just how I want to be when I get to be a freshly minted 71 year old woman with grandkids enjoying retirement.
I want to be someone like her because of her grit. Her humor. Her ability to find the good. Her willingness to see outside her own life’s experiences.
Mom comes from a long line of strong women. Grandma was a college student during the Depression, where money was as scarce as women who completed a college degree. Great-grandma was a divorcee who sat at home quilting beautifully while the family attended church (see: genetic grit). Mom has this same grit your teeth mentality.
Mom graduated from college a semester early, married Dad on the 23rd of December that year and promptly shipped him off to VietNam just a few months later. She spent time while Dad was overseas teaching in Illinois. However, when he came back, they lived in areas of Washington, DC and Louisiana that include stories of a fugitive in their apartment complex basement and that time she used the dresser to block the door, just in case. Ask her sometime about when she tried to strike up a friendly conversation at the fabric store in DC where she worked. “What does your husband do?” is not a question one asks to a person who may/may not have been employed with the CIA or FBI. Who knew?
Anyway, my point of today’s birthday post is that I used to just see my mom as just the mom. She worked. She cooked. She cleaned. She got ready in record speed. She always spoke firmly when we needed to hear it and loved a good, smarty joke. As a kid, I worried desperately about approval, but while Mom didn’t give me the sugar coated, gooey mom praise many receive, she gave me backbone and character that made me not afraid to try something new.
She allowed me the moment to stand in her bedroom my senior year of high school in tears because I had over-committed to everything that year. Then, in a way that only my mom can do, she spoke kindly and firmly, “You don’t have to be the best, Emily. You just have to be the best YOU.”
That small piece of advice has allowed me to flourish as an adult in just about every situation.
That’s why I want to be someone like you, Mom. Looking back at pictures of you at my age, I see it now. We are alike in our looks, minus my crazy curly hair. However, it’s not just the look that I’m going for. I want to be a supportive parent, a strong wife, a career focused, but greater perspective seeking person you are. I am striving to always lead being kind but firm, no matter if it’s at work or home. I’m always trying to be smart and witty. I want to always try to see others first.
While you have guided me in big decisions in all stages of my life, you have also given me a keen sense of the value of good friends, better coffee, and great shoes. These are important things when being balanced like my mom, Janet Mottaz.
Today, we celebrate you, Mom. I am forever thankful that my likeness, personality and spunk emulates who you are. We will celebrate you via Zoom call today, eat angel food cake with pink icing when we’re together again (because you make that best), and I’ll put you back to work schlepping my kids to and fro.
Love you mom, so very much. Thanks for being someone like you to someone like me.
Love,
Emily
