I am probably the worse son in the world, in addition to turning my mother in to social services when I was 13 because she insulted my hair, I perpetually forget her birthday and almost always neglect to get her anything for almost every other holiday including mothers day. There's really no excuse either, I mean, I work in retail so I'm surrounded by mothers day cards every year. This year though, my mother planned ahead and called me yesterday to remind me that mothers day was in two days. "I know mom, GOD!" I said defensively, both of us knowing my surprise. I'd like to say I would have remembered, but honestly had she not called I would have totally forgot mothers day just like how I forgot her birthday for the past 23 years.
When my parents were still married it helped that my dad was able to bare some of the blame for forgetting these days of celebration, but it's been a long time since then and there has been a lot of apologies on my behalf. She always forgives me, but she has an otherworldly ability to not forget. It's like scientists shoved three elephant brains into her skull at birth, her enlarged cranium hidden beneath her bellowing Ferrah Fawcett waves. She still likes to remind me of the Christmas gift I gave her 15 years ago, four days after Christmas. I didn't know what to get her so I went to a christian book store and bought her a water fountain with a huge guardian angel pouring water out of a pail into a whimsical pit. Upon opening this late gift, my atheist mother looked like I had just punched her in the gut, because she held her stomach as she winced in pain. At first I thought she was so touched by my spiritual gift that she was about to cry, but that thought was quickly silenced when she started laughing like an exhausted goose, "what in the hell is this?" she shrieked. I remember feeling stupid, and I remember her seeing this in my eyes. She placed the angel water fall at her bed side and has reluctantly left it there ever since, taking it with her every time she moves.
I'd like to say that I learned my lesson in regards to getting my mother things she hates, but last year when I gave her a compost pit, she puked. "This whole going green thing is making me turn green!" she screamed in to the phone as she poked rotting food I had put in the plastic bin with a stick. "Get this thing the hell away from my house it smells and there are maggots, it's gross." Come to think of it, I'm just terrible at getting gifts for people. Kayla, Jen, and Rachelle can attest to this fact, as they happily did last week when over a few drinks painstakingly retold the stories of my bad gifts. "Last year, Ryan got me this awful picture of a a woman's hands with four inch nails poking an ice cream sunday," said Kayla. "For my birthday Ryan got me a stupid Oscar Wild book that was missing half the pages, have you read Oscar Wild, it's boring as fuck." I get it! I suck at this shit.
My brother Nick on the other hand is the master of gift giving. He always shows up to family gatherings with something for my mother, a new bottle of lotion here, a new piece of jewelry there; meanwhile I'm stuffing the organic tea bag I got her back into my pocket in shame. My mom though, loves us both the same. I've always been in awe of how much she loves us, and I've always under-loved her because I've never known how to replicate that immense of a love. Take for example the day I told her I was gay.
I had fallen in love with my first boyfriend Doug, who aside from cheating on me and telling me I could stand to loose a couple pounds, was a really great guy. When Doug broke up with me by letting me catch him cheating on me, I couldn't move. It was 6:30 am and I was shitting for the millionth time that morning, an emotional response shared by both my mother and I, practically every time we ever upset each other we have to take a break in arguing to take a dump. I came downstairs, where my mother was sitting on our couch and she said, "whats wrong baby, you don't poop that much if somethings not wrong," trying to cheer me up. At that, I lost it and began bawling in her arms, "Doug broke up with me!!!" I cried into her hair. "Are you telling me your gay?" She asked, pushing me away from her to look at my face. I nodded my head yes, and she pulled me so close to her I thought our skin cells were going to fuse together. "I'm so glad you finally told me."
Apparently she has known I was a nut gobbler since I was three and pretended to be Dorthy from The Wizard of Oz in her high heels and a wig made of tissues and blankeys. She told me she decided then to accept me for who I was. Again, I don't know how to love this woman in a outwardly reciprocal way, she has me outmatched. "At least Nick will be able to have kids, I still want grand babies" she would say often. A dream that was smashed when Nick announced that he too, was a raging homosexual. Unlike me, Nick actually surprised everyone with his gayness. Nick stands at almost six foot tall and is built like a tree trunk. Not fat, but like his arm bones are about as thick as a baseball bat. He is an emotional stone and physical wall, and displays a femininity possessed by the tangled pubic bushes of professional wrestlers. No one saw it coming, not even me.
"Well God dammit, I have two gay sons," said my mother, combing the hair from her face with her finger tips and swirling a glass of wine in the other hand. "This is going to take some getting used to." It took her about a week before she was more excited about us being gay than we were, her pride in us is un-silencing and forever present, even in moments when we behave like pre-maddona alcoholics at family gatherings. Last time Nick and I attended a family gathering, we got stoned in his car and laughed at the dinner table, trying to explain how funny my aunt Deb's cheese balls are. We are not the most classy of gay brothers, but I feel that if we cleaned up our act we could have our own show on the Home Network. He would re-build houses while I drank wine and passed out in the lumber piles. I would be the comic relief and Nick would be the work. That's another thing Nick got that I didn't, work ethic.
The strangest thing about becoming an adult, is being an adult in the same room as the woman who birthed you. There is always that awkward transition that occurs when you realize that your parents are human beings, and while they may have made mistakes, they tried so hard it hurt. And then there is that moment when parents realize that you will do what you want, and that all they can impart to you is wisdom and not reprimand. Which is sort of fun, because this is the age in which you learn about your parents drug and alcohol abuse in addition to other stories that were inappropriate when they were more guardians than parents. For instance, I recently learned that after my mothers divorce with my father, she got stoned and robbed a mall.
As mothers day approaches, I'm getting scared that she'll hate my gift again, an agonizing anxiety I get at least twice a year. This year I got her Tina Fey's memoir, Bossy Pants. I read the first two chapters in at Borders and knew she'd love it. She still raves about Chelsea Handler's, "Are you there Vodka, it's me Chelsea." I think I finally made a safe choice and it dawned on me today that she doesn't care. She's been saying that for years, "I don't care what you get me, I just want you to remember." And then I remember.
I remember that hideous angel water fall sitting on her bed stand.
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