Mother's Week: Pain

Growing up, my mother made me do a lot of things I didn't want to do, embarrassing things like sing in front of the church with my brothers. I always claimed to hate it, but the reason I hated it was because she made me do it. But if I'm honest, I liked the attention. I suppose that makes me a diva. But this isn't about my neurosis. It's mother's day... which I will be stretching out a bit, because my mother is that special. So here's to mom and all the ways that she inspires me. A week of writing is far too little thanks. 

Mom was not unfamiliar with pain. It was common for my brothers and I to play quietly while mom gave herself a shot and spent the entire day in a dark room, fighting off a migrane. It's hard for a son to see mommy hurt, it's even harder when you know that there isn't anything you can do other than play quietly.

I had migraines as a child as well, so those days that mom was out of commission, I could almost feel the insatiable throbs, the fight for a comfortable position, and the longing for a sleep deep enough to forget about the pain. Sometimes I prayed that I could go through the headaches instead of her, especially on days when getting to the dark room to recover was not on her list of options.

My mother is a fantastic cook; due to her particular prowess of cooking great food for over 400 people, a new position was created on top of the cooking committee at our church specifically for funerals, which in Mennonite country can be translated as, excuse for a big meal. I have this theory that at the core of being Mennonite, there is a necessary element of preparing, eating, and cleaning up a giant meal. When someone is born, you have a shower with lots of food, when someone gets married (I broke this tradition) a smorgasbord is expected; even your death is an excuse for people to chow down. Within this culinary driven sub-culture, my mother has a reputation for setting a table you won't soon forget. But what people back home may not know is that a fair number of these gargantuan meals coincided with one of those debilitating (to the average person) migraines.

But my mother is not average --and her drive to care for others continued even when her head was throbbing. Us boys were often on the receiving end of her selflessness. Even when our requests were rather petty, she saw to them, and never held our selfishness against us. Physical pain, self sacrifice, unending forgiveness toward undeserving little twits... sounds like someone else I know.