Tomorrow, my mom will celebrate her 32nd Mother's Day, so my brothers and I wrote 32 memories we have or lessons we learned from Mom. We divided it up, so Joe and I each wrote 11 and Jesse wrote 10, and put our memories/lessons in envelopes and tied them up with a ribbon. I can't wait to see her reaction at brunch tomorrow.
If I am on the ball, I'll update this post with a picture of it, but if I'm busy with The Children, you'll just have to settle for one of my memories:
One
memory that stands out for me is from my junior year of high school. We had
gone to Ohio after Paw-Paw had passed away and I’d found a tanning lamp in the
basement… Oh my God. I just perched
in front of it, waiting to feel tan like you do when you are on the beach.
Imagine my surprise when I burnt the shit out of myself. My face was PURPLE for
days. What was perhaps worse was when it came time to go back to school, my
face was peeling. Peeling like a snake’s skin. Peeling like I had leprosy.
Peeling like I had frosted flakes coming off my face. I went to school, not
with a bad hair day, but with a bad face day. I snuck into chorus, my first
class of the day, and I felt like everyone was looking at me. I felt sooo ugly
and I didn’t want anyone to see me. I hid in the bathroom during break and
called you from the pay phone at the front of the school to come and get me.
Some
parents may have wanted to teach their kids a lesson about vanity. Some may
have said they were too busy. You dropped what you were doing and came and got
me. I cried in the car all the way
home. When we got back, I busied myself with exfoliating the shit out of my
face. My skin was pink and raw and my eyes were puffy and burning from crying
and you let me go take a nap.
What
stood out to me was that A) facial tanning lamps are the devil B) you will
always be there and scoop me up when I need you. Even though I was a brat in
high school. And college. And off and on, well, all the time.
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