A story is never enough

A story can be too long or too short, appropriate or gross, inspiring or frustrating, digging in or flying away. There are all kinds of stories. But a story is never enough. 

My mother is a story-keeper. Like all mothers, I guess. They have lived for eternity and their memories are no longer the let-me-tell-you-what-happened prompts but rather well-packed novels with a beginning, an end and a moral. Always. 

I think that my mother was born a mother. And being born a mother, her job has always been to collect stories, sort them in categories, shape them in ready-for-use patterns and store them in her "mom drawers" so that she can use them when the time comes. Her stories are her tools and my mom is a pro. But not some C-level expert you always know what to expect from. She is like Neo from the Matrix, or a Graffiti artist, or an early-Spring wind. You know she is there for you, she will master any situation, and even if you never know what exactly to expect, that is more than enough.

When she was a little girl, my mom loved cherries. Her grandma lived in a nearby village and mom spent the school holidays there. Actually, most weekends too. Sometimes with her parents, but most often on her own. Mom told me she loved it but she also told me she was happy to see her mom and dad come and take her back to the city. Kids, especially teenagers always, love the city, she says, and cannot appreciate the village. But I think she was also sad, and I think she might have missed her parents. Anyway, mom loved cherries and her grandma had a big cherry tree in her garden. When May came, mom ate so many cherries and ate them so fast that she swallowed them with the pits. Her grandma was probably worried and told her that if she did not stop, a huge cherry tree would start growing in her stomach. That tree started growing in mom’s imagination and it grew fast and big, with strong black branches tearing her stomach into pieces, and faster so that she saw herself exploding into a cherry-red mess under the giant monster tree. Mom said she was so scared that she cried and great-grandma had to tell her the tree would not grow so fast and if she stopped eating cherry pits immediately, it would never grow at all. The moral mom had to take: do not eat cherry pits. But, as I already said, mom collected stories and reshaped them in her own patterns. So the moral she told me was different. In her story, mom stopped eating cherry pits but she never felt the same pleasure in eating cherries. Hence, her moral was: fear is not the way to educate. The moral I got? Avoid cherries, just in case.

Mom never tells a story in full. She always keeps a part of it secret. And she makes it clear that she does. I have not thought a lot about her reasons but now that I am, I can see three. First, she might be ashamed of the part she keeps secret. Second, the untold piece has been labeled in a different drawer for a different occasion. Third, that is her way to keep the suspense going.

When mom was in high school she had to pass a math exam. She was good at math, she still is, and loved solving problems - she still does. There were more than ten problems and mom solved them all. In the end, she had a B, and not an A only because of a minor calculation mistake she had made. Her moral for me: do not underestimate the small things when the big picture looks fabulous. I get it, especially for math, because I am just like mom. I am excited when I see the solution and underestimate the annoying calculations. But every time she tells this story mom also says “Do not rush because you might get consequences you never wished for and you do not deserve”. That part is hard to get as she never told me what consequences she got that she had never wished for and did not deserve.

Mom is always careful in telling stories. Probably because the math exam taught her not to rush. It looks as if she spontaneously picks up a story for every problem I face but I know her selection process is meticulous. However, just like Neo, she trips over a black cat occasionally. And lets a line from the mom-only restricted drawer slip out.

It was Valentine's Day yesterday. We have a tradition with mom and my sister: always have a classic Valentine’s Day. That means chocolate, more chocolate, ice cream and a classic romantic movie. My mom shortlists five, we watch the trailers and vote. This year it was La La Land (it had to be Ryan Gosling!). My sister and I bought chocolates to surprise mom as we knew she had a lot to do during the day. In the afternoon, when we came back from school, mom asked how the day was, and if we had sent or received something. None of us had received anything and neither had mom. But that was ok. We told her funny stories about classmates - one had made cinnamon cookies for her boyfriend and another one sent Valentines to the whole school. In the evening, when mom finished a big report for work, she helped me prepare for a physics test. Then she took the dog for a walk, went shopping and started making dinner. At about 8 PM, I was texting with a friend when I felt hungry and went to the kitchen to check how dinner was going. Mom was stirring something in a saucepan while she was putting something else in the oven. I thought she looked a bit tense. And when I asked about the dinner, I was sure she was.  

-Does it really matter? It’s 8:30, you are doing who knows what, your sister is doing Pilates and obviously no one plans to come. And it’s Valentine’s Day.

Hmm, interesting. We usually had dinner at about 8:30 and I could not see what the problem was. So I just said:

-Sorry, mom, can I help you?

She looked at me, for a brief second only, and got back to stirring.

-No, no need. But it is Valentine’s Day. It has always been a nasty day! You expect something great and only shit happens. Always! I hate that day. And you are not here on time so we will not have time for the movie. It will all be ruined. As always.

That was not mom’s first black-cat tripping so I knew it would pass. Five minutes later, she apologized, as she always did when she said something unplanned or something that she thought could make us feel guilty when we “actually had absolutely nothing to do with it”. Usually, she said it was her period mood, the tension at work or her migraine that made her say things she did not mean. 

We watched the movie, and ate the chocolates - I fell asleep right after we ate the chocolates and just before Ryan Gosling sang for the second time. It was a classic Valentine's evening by all means. My sister went to bed, mom woke me up to go to bed too. I brushed my teeth and went to my room.

I go to my mom's room to kiss her good night every evening. But last night it took me longer. At some point, she came knocking at my door.

-You did not come. Are you ok? - she looked worried.

-Sure, mom, I am coming, give me a minute.

Before I fell asleep, down there, on the sofa, watching La La Land, I was looking at my mom. What had made her say all that nasty stuff about Valentine’s Day when I knew she loved it? What had she always expected to happen and what kind of shit had happened instead? She was wrapped in her orange blanket as she was always cold, eating chocolate after chocolate as if she was eating cherries and looked like… mom. Of course, she told us a story - about her and grandma watching La La Land and how it started snowing when they left the cinema and how the night was tender and beautiful as if Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone would start dancing in the empty street. And I watched her face and the tears that made her eyes look bigger - she always cried at movies, after movies and when talking about movies. What was there in her mom-only restricted drawer that she kept so greedily? 

And then, alone in my room, I felt sad, I felt like crying, I felt as if I saw a lonely mom in a huge orange blanket, scared by the cherry pits, by the small mistakes, by the big fabulous pictures and the snowfall that is always late. 

I took a sheet from my physics notebook, which was still on my bed, and made a paper flower. Then I went to kiss her good night. She did not expect it - the flower and me having cried. I told her that I did not want her to have a nasty Valentine’s Day so she could have my paper flower instead. She hugged me, so tight. She said she had spoken about old times and she said Valentine’s Day had been amazing ever since we were born. She said she loved me so much and thanked me for making all her Valentines amazing. 

I smiled. For her. And went to bed. What was her moral? The bright side is always bigger if you focus on it. And all the rest can be easily hoarded in the mom-only drawer. Locked carefully, guarded, treasured, cherished and cried over. 

For me, it was too hard to see that tiny mom, scared of her hoard of secret stories. So I choose not to. She can keep them all. And I will make her thousands of paper flowers for each of them. To fill a new drawer, in her heart and in mine.