Moms are the cheerleader and the coach

Let this week’s Beside the Point serve as an open greeting card to all Moms on Mom’s Day.

As your children, and more pointedly, as your sons, we know we were a pain in the ass.

We know we were always right when we were wrong, and you were always right when you knew we were wrong.

Those times when you drew the line and we walked away with that sucker-punched look on our face are never forgotten. We thought about running away and teaching you a good lesson, but you were the one teaching the lesson.

Those lessons were unending and frustrating as hell. But they made us better men and women in our adult lives - even in our not-so-adult lives.

As adolescents and young adults still not ready to leave the nest, we fought and tried to establish our independence. We believed we were there, but we weren’t. Not even close.

You knew it but never told us, and that too made us stronger and more independent. Your heart was breaking as we prepared to leave, but you took the road of mentor and prepared us for the very thing you dreaded.

Now all the recipes in our adult lives are made with your seasoning. All our homes are filled with your love, and our hearts still pump the blood you gave us from your body.

Mother’s Day isn’t just a day to be pampered by your children, but a day to be proud of who you are and what you’ve done. Look at those today doting on you and remind yourself that you did that. We just followed the path you paved with love.

Today is even more special to me as our mother once again finds herself in a fight with cancer. She kicked its butt about 20 years ago and now it's attached to her liver. They can’t radiate it and they can’t remove it surgically. The “mortality calendar" that some of these hospital systems use say at her age she isn’t a candidate for a new liver.

That system has failed me, and not only me, tragically in the past. But we have no choice other than to have faith in what God has created in that system today. I don’t believe God has a hand in tragedy and I believe he mourns when we mourn.

When we see wonderful things, we look to the heavens and Thank God for the blessing, but I’m not sure it’s that – or a coincidence born out of his creation. He gets to smile at the good things too, just as he would mourn the tragic.

I have no choice but to believe that.

Now my mother fights again with the help of these systems to beat another cancer. We move forward with vigilance and hope, not yet bumped off life’s track because of past tragedies. This Mother’s Day we recommit to the woman that brought life and lessons. Some she didn’t even know she was teaching. It was just instinct.

As children and teens, we forget these lessons as we blow in and out of the screen door running here and there. We forget, if just for a short time, that this person is at home but her radar is on. You let me be the person I wanted to be even when it wasn’t the right person to be.

You moved me gently back to the path when I strayed and now your body’s trying to move you from your path. But we fight.

We always fight. There’s too many cabin trips, birthday parties, Christmases, and Mother’s Days left. We know naturally we lose our parents at some point. But I’m at a point in my life where I still need that coach in my life – that cheerleader – that Mom.

I’m by your side like all the other sons and daughters out there who stand firmly by their Mothers. Moms like gifts from their children, but it’s their children they really want today, everything else is Beside the Point.

Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.v@pencitycurrent.com.