When I was sixteen I
told my mama I wanted to make something in my life that people would remember
me for well after I was gone. I longed
to leave my impression on history. She
smiled at me and told me a story about a time that she went with a group of
friends to Hilton Head and a boy carved her name into a rock. A distant look clouded her face. Then she said that was probably the only
thing that would carry her name long after she was gone.
That look and the reverberation of that statement made me mad, and
stuck with me. Today it still burns
inside of me to think of a boy, who is not sitting her today, could control the
memory of my mother by scraping her name into a cold weathered rock.
The man I have become could only exist with the guidance of my
mother. As a woman I never caught a
glimpse or found one speck of jealousy in her heart because she taught me that
in this world we all have to make our own way.
And even though she always thanked God for the blessings in her life she
showed me that regret was a losing game because in the end we judge ourselves
more harshly than God would ever judge.
We hold our mistakes as talismans because what anyone with half a heart
perceived as mistakes are the lynchpins of their character.
I understand that not everyone thinks of my mother as a saint or an
angel as I do. She had her flaws as a
person, but none of those flaws outshined the beauty of her heart. My mama never found an injustice she was too
scared to speak against, just as she never found someone who was truly in need
that she would not help. She was never
disparaging to any person or any group of people. She made enemies based on how much hate
people inflicted upon other people, and even then her ability for forgiveness
and to recognize the flaws of our humanity was a resounding inspiration.
As much as I strive to be my own person and to form my own
opinions, I am nothing but a copy of my mother’s philosophy because my mother
taught that nothing good existed in this world without love. She lived her life by loving every bit and
person she could. She led by example and
showed me that although the love you tried to show the world would not always be
returned, all I could do was give it everything I had and be thankful when it
came back to me.
People rarely agree with my opinions, and people rarely understand
what I strive to do with my life. That’s
okay, because those people were not raised by my mama. People don’t understand that we endlessly
give and only hope to receive. That’s
why I hope to be half as good as my mama.
That’s why it burns my pride to think some nameless boy frozen in the
past would be the one person to be privileged enough to etch my mother’s name
into the future.
For years I have lived by my mama’s philosophy, but the night she
died I held her hand and I carved her epitaph in my heart, and I ask you all to
do the same. Love your lives, and the
people in it, with everything you can muster.
Help me carve her name into this earth with the love that she has shown
all of you. And when you receive some of
it back smile and think of her and she will always be remembered.
