Hats Off to Mom

I can remember in my twenties and early thirties when I was still in the corporate world selling television commercials that would tell people what to buy so they could be sexy, happy and rich. That job came with the full meal deal; way more than enough $, full health benefits and retirement.

My mom lived in Orange County and I would go visit her either in her one bedroom apartment or a studio apartment. She kept it neat and because she was an artist, she would have her weavings displayed on the walls. When I was down there, she would splurge and fix us steak dinners and serve it on fold out t.v. dinner stands. It was delux.

Us kids called her the 'freeway flier'. She worked three part time jobs at various community colleges teaching people new to this country how to speak English. Her classes always loved her. Imagine going to a new country and not knowing the language and trying to make it. They loved my mom because she cared about them and was able to help them in their lives. Each class would give her presents and she would proudly put them somewhere in her apartment.

She worked part time because of a few reasons...one is that California community colleges try and save money by not hiring many (sometimes any) full-time ESL teachers so they don't have to pay benefits. But the other reason was, "I want to have time to write." I can remember hearing that from her for decades.

But she did not have a lot of time to write slogging her big bag stuffed with student papers and her books on rollers to her car and from college to college to pay the bills. She kept her schedule on her car dashboard so she did not forget which college she was teaching at on what day.

I look back on that now with such respect. At the time, I thought she could do better. Me, in my soul-sucking job that had all the things that I took for granted while she went without health insurance for decades. But she did make her way.

Getting married at 18 without having had a job or having ever supported herself, I see what an achievement it was to have the courage to get out of a bad marriage and find a way to pay her own bills in her mid thirties. She did make it work and she touched a lot of lives while doing it.

So, hats off to my mom...the 'freeway flier' who gave people the gift of language and all the doors that can open for them in their lives. For me, she gave me the gift of language too...words on the page...page after page, as I too take time to write.