Which relationship has taught you the most about yourself?
She could win an argument with a parking meter.
Everyone has that one person who could negotiate a ceasefire and a discount in the same breath. Mine was a 4-foot-9-inch giant.
I learned who I am by standing next to someone I’m not. Here are three stories about Mom that show it: how she moved, how she laughed, and how she never once apologized for either.
Move or Be Moved
Maybe she was born with an independent streak, or maybe life forced her to develop one. Either way, she had a confidence I could never replicate, no matter how many times I practised in the mirror.
In a past life, Mom was a general. A psychic said so. (And I 1,000% believe it.) Every morning, she put on makeup like she was heading into battle: she called it “war paint.”
I, on the other hand, was told by my Kindergarten teacher to stop avoiding conflict so much.*
*I did fix this. I became a mediator, which is what you do when you’d rather not be a general.
A Little Levity Goes a Long Way
Of course, good warriors know that not every battle needs a cannon. Sometimes they need a punchline.
At one of her first jobs in London, a colleague kept sitting at her desk. (It happened to be right in front of the attractive boss’s office.)
Mom got so fed up that she started telling the desk-stealer to inform him she’d gone home for the day because she had nowhere to sit. This went on for a while… until finally, she marched in to complain directly.
He was seated behind his desk, but from where she stood, he might as well have been a skyscraper.
She took a breath.
“I have a problem,” she began, hesitantly.
He waited, probably wondering what this tiny woman who’d been skipping out on work wanted to gripe about now.
“You’re too good looking…”
Mom was quick witted like that (disarming before you’d even seen her aim). I, on the other hand, am a classic tube-light.
Let’s Hang in the Shallow End
Mom’s approach to self-discovery was simple: be yourself, loudly, and let everyone else catch up.
So when I gave her a copy of The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz, I should have seen it coming. She gave it about four seconds, then threw it back at me, muttering, “What’s this crap?”
The book and I both sat there, stunned.
Unlike Mom, I spend most of my time wallowing in introspection, gobbling up every self-help book I can find with the voracious curiosity of a raccoon at a picnic.
Mom is slowly making her way out of this realm. She’s taking her time, on her own schedule, as usual.
In Avengers: Endgame, Frigga says, “Everyone fails at who they’re supposed to be. The measure of a person, of a true hero, is how well they succeed at being who they are.” Mom never needed that lesson, since she was born knowing exactly who she was. I had to fail at being her first.
I’m not like her. But I know who I am because I got to stand next to someone who knew exactly who she was.
