Moby – Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad.
GROWNG UP
On a warm spring afternoon, I walked into my house from high school and proclaimed: “Mom, I’m tired of being picked on. I’m going to be in a fight in the front yard. Please don’t go outside.”
With a puzzled look, Mom said nothing.
Twenty minutes later, there were a crowd of people, a traffic jam, and two police cars. I returned to the kitchen and said: “Mom, I’m going to the hospital to get my hand checked. I’m fine. Please don’t go outside.”
Many years later, Mom succumbed to a long illness. During the earlier years of her progressive decline, I dealt with tremendous guilt surrounding my impatience with her inability to be the strong woman that I knew.
After her memorial service, a lady approached me and said: “You probably don’t know this, but I was on the phone with your Mom when you had that altercation in your front yard. It was very difficult for your sweet mother to let you handle things on your own … but she knew you had to learn to stand up for yourself. She watched you from the living room window and told me: My boy is doing just fine.”
It was then that I realized that Mom always had all the strength I needed. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for her not to run outside to protect her son. That strength to stand aside and let me take care of myself was exactly what I needed …. both then and now.
I am eternally grateful that my mother knew when to get involved and, more importantly, when to let me work things out on my own. That day, I learned to stand up for myself, and I started to become a man.
Thank you, Mom. I love you.