Incoherent Scribblings

A Mother’s Day Story

As is the case with most college students, my first year of undergraduate school was not only full of new-found freedoms, but also the consequences and responsibilities of being away from home for the first time.

I had never been a sickly child and many school years I was the recipient of a perfect attendance award. But shortly after Christmas break during my freshman year of college I got sick with the flu. And it wasn’t the 24 hour kind. It was the three day with the next three weeks needed for recovery kind. My bones ached. I had a fever and all of the nasty symptoms of the flu.

I started feeling poorly on a Sunday evening and before I went to bed I threw up the Subway Classic B.M.T. Sandwich I had had for dinner. (To this day, I can’t eat those sandwiches.) I woke up on Monday morning with a fever and could barely climb down from my top bunk. I had French class at 10:00 and because my French teacher was a known to have little sympathy for kids that skipped class, I dreaded the thought of not showing up. I tried to shower and dress, but just couldn’t do it. Finally, I surrendered to the fact that I was sick and called my French teacher and told her I had the flu. I must have sounded terrible because she was uncharacteristically understanding.

As the day wore on and I lay limply in my bunk, my fever climbed, and more than once I barely made it to the trash can when I had to retch. I was miserable and in my self-pity I began to weep and had never in my life wanted my mommy so badly.

I hauled the telephone up to my bed and called my mom at work. When she answered the phone, I said in a tiny whiny voice, “Mommy… (I hadn’t called my mother “Mommy” for at least 8 years at that point) I’m s i c k!”

I don’t know what I expected. Maybe a little sympathy. Maybe some advice telling me to drink some orange juice, have some chicken soup, or crawl under the covers. Maybe I was hoping she would tell me it would be OK… she would hop into the car and drive three and a half hours to my small liberal arts college and nurse me back to health.

But instead she replied, “That’s too bad… but what do you want me to do about it?”

I was crestfallen. Here I was in my hour of misery and it seemed that she had no sympathy for me. In a pouty voice, I replied, “Umm… nothing I guess. I just thought you ought to know.”

We talked a little longer, she wished me a speedy recovery, and then we hung up. I went back to bed, some hours later my fever broke, and I eventually recovered.

Now let me say that my mother and I have always had a wonderful relationship and on those occasions when I did get sick as a child she was always there bringing me toast and 7-UP. She wasn’t mean to me that day, but in her own subtle way she was reminding me that I was technically a grown-up now and though she would always be there to listen to me in my hour of need, it was time for me to solve my own problems.

I had always thought that I was independent, but on that day I learned what it really meant to be on my own.

And so today, drama queen that I am, while I moan to A. about how miserable I am suffering from the cold he gave me, I take a moment to remember all of the ways that my mom helped me to become the independent (although frequently melodramatic) woman that I am today.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom!