About my Mother

Yes, it’s Mother’s Day. Yes, it’s the reason why I’m writing about my mother. And Yes, I do appreciate her every single day, not just on this special occasion.

First, I want to get the cliché sayings out of the way. They’re all true, but clichéd nonetheless:

• my mother knows me better than I know myself;
• my mother is my role model;
• my mother is my best friend;
• my mother is the most hardworking person I know; and
• my mother is who I get my good looks from.

In other words, if I become half the person she is, I’d be satisfied.

Now that I’m done with the clichés, I want to get specific about my mother.

What I love about my mother is how she always tells us to be proud of our height (I’m 6’1’’, my sisters are 5’10’’ and 5’11’’) but then when it comes time to take family pictures, she always squats down a bit to appear shorter than my father. You see, she’s 6’3’’ and he’s only 6 feet tall.

I love how the Dutch are known to suffer from “Dutch directness” and that my mother says she is not affected by it, yet as soon as I walk in wearing something she disapproves of she makes a comment along the lines of “Noémi, that’s hideous.”

I love how when I got my first period and told her that I didn’t want flowers – something she gifted my big sister with when she became a woman – my mother listened, which I was slightly disappointed about.

I love how my mother always encourages me to be open and honest, but how she also asks me to keep secrets from my sisters to avoid them getting jealous.

I love how even though I’m all grown up now, she still doesn’t consider me one of the adults and tells me: “Noémi, can I have some time alone with your aunts?” to which I ask: “why can’t I stay?” to which she answers: “because I want to talk about you.”

I love how she proofreads everything that I’m not confident about, including a 29-pages single-spaced document that needed to be handed in at midnight that day.

I love how we often play cards, and that she lets me win when she sees that I’m having a bad day. She also openly cheats when I’m exhausted, but at least she comes clean at the end of every game.

I love how when I got sick of piano lessons and wanted to try guitar, she let me. We had trouble finding me a second-hand one in my small town because I’m a lefty, and when we finally did, I lasted through three lessons and quit. I decided that I wanted to play the saxophone instead, one of the noisiest instruments I could pick. She reminded me to practice every week, drove me to my lessons for six years, and even joined me in a stage band, playing the trumpet.

After a few years of no longer taking lessons and not playing very often (I was living in an apartment and didn’t want to bother my neighbours), she asked me if she could donate my sax to a high school music program. I said no, but I love how she still went and gave it away.

I love how when we were kids, she used to dress my sisters and me up the same way so that if she loses one of us, she easily remembered what we looked like in order to tell the authorities.

I love how she’s always flattered when people think she’s my sister.

I love how she sticks her nail in the middle of my spine to make me stand up straighter.

I love how my mother supported me in my vegetarian phase, making tofu and falafels for me, even though my father – an ex-dairy farmer – did not approve of my diet.

I love how she pretends to buy clothes for herself, even though her intention is clearly always to give the items to me.

I love how she laughs.

I love when she gets tipsy.

I love how open she is with me.

I love how she shared – possibly unconsciously – her passion for reading with me.

I love how she has always supported my dream of becoming a writer. Before I could even write, she would fold and staple printer paper together, we would sit at the edge of the kitchen counter together, I would tell her what to write on each page, and I would go hide and draw in the visuals. Then, of course, I would present them to my father – he was my prince after all – before showing the final result to my mom.

I love how, even though I don’t nearly show her enough how much I love and appreciate her, she is always there for me, never asking for anything more than a smile.

And, even though I hate it, I love how I’m so often told that I’m just like my mom.

I love you, mom.