In early elementary school my parents got divorced. In retrospect I think I understand why a lot better than I did at the time. Back then I thought we resembled a happy family.
After the split my dad was the one who bought me Lunchables. I'm not sure if that's telling of anything - money situations, time available for making lunches, opposition to childhood obesity. Like most people it's still weird for me to think of my parents having histories - of having had opinions and worries and experiences and lives in general before I became old enough to see those things for myself.
My mom had an apartment for a little while, in the same complex that my grandma lives in now. I have incredibly fond memories of the apartment itself, and incredibly unfond memories of the time surrounding it. My sister and I stayed with her one night a week, evenings filled with desperate energy, frantic efforts to memorize each other's company for recollection during the long stretches apart. Eventually she found a house an easy bike ride from Dad's, and we learned a new normal.
I think one of the saddest (and best, but that's beside the point) books ever written is East of Eden. It is the most devastating feeling in the world to do something wonderful and heartfelt for someone, with no ulterior motive, and be rejected.
On a spring afternoon I returned home from 5th grade through the side door that led from the garage into the kitchen and found Mom smiling, a Wegmans bag in hand. In it, she revealed, was the first Lunchables she'd ever bought for me: one of the taco varieties. Sensible; she knew I was a huge fan of Friday taco night with my dad. She knew I loved Lunchables. She didn't know that the taco meals were the one kind I didn't like.
Her excitement and generosity were too much. In what must have been a baffling development, I started crying.
It was an enormously trivial occurrence.
Sometimes I feel like it resonates, though, rustling neurons with similar frequencies. I worry sometimes that my mom doesn't understand how much I appreciate the things she does for me. By all objective measures, I'm more my dad's son; we have similar interests, mannerisms, even laughs. But my mom taught me how to stand up for myself; how to listen, and how not to; how to make friends and keep them. How to survive in a chaotic world. When I want to talk geekery I go to my dad, but when I want to talk about people - be they myself or others - I go to mom. Some of my happiest memories are of sitting among family in the warm glow of a full stomach after dinners she's hosted, roasting by the fireplace or laughing in the midst of the absurd game of the week.
I do my best to thank her after every meal, every unsolicited gift, every trip and visit, but there's only so many ways to say it before it becomes too repetitive to take sincerity as given. So here's a new way, or a louder one, at least:
Thanks for the Lunchables, Mom, and for everything else. I love you. Happy birthday.
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