This morning on NPR, I heard an excerpt from the story core project. Story Core consits of recordings that people have sent in about moments in their personal lives, historic moments, family history, personal stories, and so on. It's a wonderful series, and this morning in honor of mother's day, they had two woman talking about their mom. It made me wonder what memory my children would want to record for prosperity. Now that you're done wandering into that thought, and laughing, I'll tell you I have no idea, but I do know one of the defining moments for me. Of course, my children's birth, and the milestones, birthdays, graduations, weddings, and the gift of a grandchild. But the moment that most defined my years of MOM is one I guarantee my children won't even remember. I"m not even sure of the exact month and year. I think it was April of '93. We had just drove up from Birmingham, AL to our new home in Louisville, KY. My little Honda prelude packed with the basics, including a TV and VCR to get us through the night, as our moving company wasn't going to arrive until the next day. Our new home was a tri level townhome I had rented in a nice part of town. It was clean, nice looking, had a great view of woods out the back deck, and plenty of room for all of us. This was the first time the girls were seeing it. So, after checking out all the rooms, I suggested we go exploring our new area and get some dinner. During this whole process I have no idea what was going through their heads, but I was very excited about the move, and the job, and of course, very anxious. After all I was this single mom who didn't know a sole in this new town. NOT A SINGLE PERSON. Other than the people I worked with I was totally alone. Me and my baby cubs, going out to forage for food in the new land and check out our surroundings. I don't remember exactly what we ended up getting or doing, I'm sure we bought some groceries, maybe drove by their school, remember all this was before GPS and cell phones. But since we had an entire night and no furniture, cable or anything except our VCR we also went and rented some video's. So, I'm in the neighborhood video store, and I have to sign up. I'm beaming with excitement. Giving the salesgirl, who is all of 16, my NEW address, and credit card and I start to tell her, we just moved here. Just an hour ago. I continue all excited and smiling, this is the first thing we've done here. You're the first place I've connected with, and I'm going on and on over how cool this is that we live here now and so on and and so forth, grinning ear to ear. Well, of course, she could give a hoot. Like who cares lady, just have the video back by tomorrow.
That poor girl had no idea how proud and triumphant the simple task of finding and renting a video seemed to me. I had just led us into the new world. At that moment I felt like we were the dynamic trio. The three of us could do anything. And I WAS the leader of this amazing pack of accomplished humans. I felt so empowered. I had gotten my pack to safety, in a new environment, navigated the strange surroundings and we emerged triumphant, with a video to watch. Life would continue as we knew it. And I had accomplished it all. I WAS super mom!
Louisville turned out to be very kind to us. We all made nice friends, enjoyed a nice life there, admittedly it was the most tumultuous time in my life, I lost a relationship, and my mother passed away while I was in Louisville. But I still remember my time there as very peaceful and happy. In the fall of '96 we left Louisville behind and moved back to Virginia. That's about 14 mother's days ago. My daughters, one a mother now, the other also grown and forging her own way in the world probably have their own memories of Louisville, but I doubt very much that moving day was a defining moment for them. I hear them tell me all the time of things they remember, that I barely can scrape up from the grey matter in my brain. Perhaps that's because I was always so busy getting through life to be a part of it. But for one night back in '93, and a million overdue video rental fees ago, the three of us were joined together in an adventure, led by me, and we survived. As a mom, that was the moment I felt It would all be okay. And I'm sure the woman I looked up to, my mom, would have been proud of her daughter.
