Mothers Count

Happy almost mother’s day! Whether a new mom or an experienced mom, I hope you know you make a difference in this world. Mothers don’t get a lot credit sometimes. We all know that line of “you’re my mom, you don’t count,” or “you’re my mom, you have to like my painting/music/acting/insert any accomplishment here.” Some of us kids are likely guilty of saying or thinking those lines ourselves.

I think it’s time to cut those lines to pieces, because mothers are important. Please bear with me. I’ve only told this story to one person and you can bet it was my mom.

Back in middle school, I had a rough time. My parents were going through a divorce. Because of it, my brother and I moved out of a humble house on two acres. We had a creek in the back where my brother and I built our fort. We moved in with our mom in this small duplex. It was a nice place. I have good memories there, but I did miss our fort and the adventures we had around it.

So, parents going through a divorce, moved into a smaller house, and trying to survive middle school was a bit of a roller coaster ride. There were good days and there were bad days. I remember one bad day pretty vividly.

School emotionally pummeled me that day. I don’t remember what happened, but I remember feeling heavy on the bus ride home. I didn’t fight with my friends, but I did feel excluded from them. I think it was one of those days where it felt like the friend group forgot I existed. I definitely felt like they wouldn’t care if I suddenly disappeared. I got home. My brother got on the computer to play his favorite games and I went up to my room. My mom was at work.

I remember sitting on my bed with silent tears rolling down my cheeks. I was one of those kids who had several friends with divorced parents, but I didn’t actually believe it would ever happen to my parents. As heavy as I felt, dark thoughts intruded. I believed my friends didn’t care about me. My brother went straight for his video games, so I took that as a sign that he didn’t care about me. My dad was gone. I saw him occasionally. I knew things were complicated, but him leaving hurt harder that day. Dark thoughts told me the lies that he didn’t care about me either. No one in the world cared about me. That’s what I believed.

So…I thought about ending it.

There was a couple ways that went through my mind. Strangle myself in the bathroom. I’m sure I could find a bunch of pills in there, but slicing my wrist was too scary and messy. At this point, I was silently sobbing. I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t think I had any hope. I couldn’t see how things could get better.

Before making up my mind, I prayed. I’m a Christian. Mom always made sure we went to church and attended our youth group. So, silently sobbing on my bed, I prayed to God that if he could just give me one person. One person in this hopeless world that cared about me, then I’d choose life.

Immediately, I heard “your mom.”

And, like I fool, I tried to argue. “Okay, but moms don’t really count.”

“You said one person.”

That I did, and you know what? My mom sacrificed a lot for me and my brother. Yeah, we lost our creek house, but we made fun memories at the duplex–scaring people on Halloween, trying a live Christmas tree for the first time, hanging out on the antique loveseat watching TV or making western photos with the family. She made sure my brother got to go to one high school for the special program there and me to a different high school for the Animal Science program there. We were low on money, but she let my brother and I get the CUTEST puppy at the mall. She endured jobs she didn’t like because she fought to provide for us and she did it on her own.

I started to wonder what would happen to my family if I went through with it. How my mom would feel. Where the blame would get pointed. It would make all my mom’s hard work to take care of me and my brother pointless. I didn’t want to put her through that.

I hung out on my bed and waited for my mom to get home. When I heard her, I went downstairs and gave her a hug and I helped her with dinner that night. I didn’t tell her until years later about how I thought about ending it, but that night I made a promise. I promised to never entertain suicidal thoughts again…

Because mothers count.

I love you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.