Heroes

I heard a cool interview on my way home from work today. At the end, he said his mom once told him, "I'd love you if you were a garbageman." What a powerful thing, a mother's love for her child. It reminded me of a story about my mom that I will share with you on this (two days after) Mother's Day.

When I was a kid, for some reason I got it in my head that someone was going to come up the stairs in the middle of the night and hurt me. I think it may have been related to my considerable skill at sneaking downstairs, hiding in the doorway and watching whatever late night TV show the babysitter had on without her knowing. This was not a smart choice and I stopped once I saw (no clue what show) a robbery scene where a group of people got herded into the backroom of some business and were gunned down by the bad guys, execution style. They lay on the floor and bled and moaned - seriously, this would have given me nightmares if I saw it today, but I think I was like 10 or so. After that, I stayed in bed when put there but had to play over and over in my head how I would react in a situation like that. How I would get down on the floor quickly so they would think I was hit and how, since I was a kid and skinny, the others could fall on me and no one would notice that I was still breathing.

One evening my mom came home and saw that I was still awake. She asked why and, while I did not confess to the TV part, I asked what would happen if someone came up the stairs to get me. I explained that I had the closest bedroom to the top of the stairs so I would be first in line. My mom looked at me with a fierceness that I had never seen before and said that if anyone ever tried to hurt me, they would have to get past her first. No matter what, she would be there in front of me, fighting them off. And that was it, I should never forget it.

So that was it, I went to sleep. I still think that was the scariest thing I have ever seen on TV, but it lost its power over me. I knew that there would be times when I would have to face my own real-life bad guys, but now I also knew that there was never a time when my mother was not there for me - literally, figuratively, whatever. Because she said she would and that's what mothers do.