Word to Your Mother

If there is one thing I have never, ever taken for granted in all of my nearly thirty years, I’d have to say it is the random good fortune of having been born male.  I could easily give you a laundry list of reasons why I’m so thankful for my Y-chromosome — $50 bras, $100 haircuts, all that time spent putting makeup on in the morning — but all of those pale in comparison to my #1 reason, which I was reminded of in dramatic fashion not too long ago.

It was a late night seven weeks ago, and I was sitting in a small room adjacent to the birthing suite at the home of the local midwife while my sister was preparing to give birth to yet another baby girl, Aubri Jean.  For reasons I’ll never quite understand, she had decided to go with "natural" childbirth this time around, a term which quickly started to feel like the ultimate oxymoron as the night wore on.  Because, I tell you what, there was nothing remotely natural about the noises emanating from the other side of the thin wall I found myself staring at in wide-eyed horror.  Why do we do this to people? I couldn’t help but wonder.

You see for me, the act of childbirth has always seemed like something straight off the sci-fi channel or maybe an internal CIA interrogation memo.  I’m sorry, but spending equal parts of nine months puking your brains out and having your insides used as a punching bag until one day, this slimy little extraterrestrial-looking thing — that could almost pass as human, if only it’s face wasn’t so scrunched up — manages to claw its way out with very little regard for the damage it does to your body sounds a lot less like a "miracle" and more like something Dick Cheney should be justifying on Meet the Press each Sunday.  And yet, millions upon millions of women all over the world do it every year like it’s no big deal, making the voodoo we call motherhood seem effortless even though it’s anything but. 

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg in a life of constantly putting someone else’s personal comforts/needs/dreams/hunger/problems ahead of your own — day in, and day out — with no real expectation of even a simple "Thanks, Mom."  It’s being woken up at 4 a.m. to clean up some ungodly mix of bodily fluids that couldn’t possibly have come from the tiny person staring weakly back at you, dropping everything at work to race across town to hand-deliver a third permission slip for The Centipede Exhibit at the Museum because someone misplaced the last two and the bus leaves in 15 minutes, and long nights digging relentlessly through not one, but all three dumpsters behind the local pizza place with archaeologist-like scrutiny, in desperate search of the holy grail known simply as "The Retainer" — sometimes all in the span of one day.  For some, it’s five years without a full night’s rest because you’re 30-year-old baby boy needs his eyebrow scratched in the middle of the night.  No wait, his nose.  Now his head.  Up a little.  Over a little.  Back just a hair.  Down some.  Right there.  A little more.  That’s good.  Oh wait, the eyebrow again. 

So, to all the amazing moms that I know personally, and the dozen or so (maybe) out there who still manage to drop by my lowly corner of the interwebs here from time to time, I just want to wish you the very happiest of Mother’s Day filled with whatever you desire — be it an all day spa sesh or just 15 minutes to sit down and catch your breath.  And to Mad Dog, whose strength, love, patience and compassion are downright legendary in the eyes of all those lucky enough to know her, I just want to say thanks for doing all that you do every day to make this life just a little bit easier for me to bear.  If I could somehow find a way to obtain and wrap a thousand or so hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep, that would be my gift to you.  Happy Mother’s Day, Mom… I love you.

Now, for the rest of us, yeah, give Mom a big hug because today is her day.  But then do it once more, a) just because you can but, more importantly, b) because she actually grew your funky, alien-looking ass inside her body for nine months, and she did it with relatively little complaint.  I’ll say it again:   Inside. Her. BODY!!!  Take a minute and let that sink in… and give her one more hug.  It’s the least you can do.