The Most Influential Person In My Life

On Mother’s Day I found myself thinking about my mom and how much she’s influenced my life. She’s actually been the most influential person in my life. My mom is 5 feet 2 inches tall and about 100 pounds, but when she walks into a room everyone knows she’s there.

My mother and I have not always had a perfect relationship. We went through the normal “mother-I-hate-you” phase when I was a teenager. She’s never liked any of my male relationship choices until just recently. However, there have been so many lessons that she’s taught me throughout my 46 (and a half) years that have literally shaped who I am today.

Lesson #1

Have you noticed lately how small purses have gotten? You barely have room for a wallet and keys, much less all the other treasures of your life. People who carry big purses lead interesting lives. When I was little I can remember going through my mom’s purse and finding things like:

• A calculator that she used to add each item at the grocery store to be certain she didn’t go over the amount of cash she had in her wallet. She was a single mom who worked two jobs to keep food on our table and clothes on our back and she could only spend what she had in her wallet.

• A small picture album of my brother and I from birth to current age.

• Little spiral notebooks for all of the lists she used to keep. These little notebooks also included her thoughts for the day -- and my favorite, what she was getting us for birthdays and Christmas.

• There were things that mattered to her—cigarettes and her favorite Elvis lighter. Her bottle of valium that the doctor prescribed because she said she was stressed being a single mom.

Now, I don’t really like big purses because I can never find anything in them. Even if I only have four things in there, it never fails that I have to dump everything out to find what I’m looking for.

However, there have been times I’ve had to resort to a large purse. In fact, it came in very handy one year when I had the nerve to hold my birthday at Silver City Brewery. Silver City doesn’t serve Budweiser. My mother lives on the Dark Side—she only drinks Budweiser. (Well that, and about a pot of coffee a day.) She told me she wasn’t going to come to my party because there’d be no Budweiser! (Have I mentioned yet that she’s a tad bit stubborn and opinionated, too?)

So what’s a daughter to do? That night, my large purse carried in to Silver City Brewery a six-pack of Budweiser.  What you do for love.

The lesson there? Interesting people carry large purses because of their depth, their ability to hold a lot of information,. and lots of hidden treasures. Smaller purses just can’t compare.

Lesson #2

About 25 years ago my mother purchased a Mexican cowboy hat made of leather. I’m sure you’ve seen them. It’s dark brown and has a braid around the rim. She named it her “drinking” hat.

It was bad enough 25 years ago. Now, the hat is one of the 8 wonders of the world. She’s added pins from just about every place she’s traveled and every bar she’s been to. At last count there were over 180 pins on the hat. She’s tied around the base of the brim her Sony Open Golf tickets which come on a lanyard. (I think the current count of lanyards is up to five.) There’s a feather hanging off the back. (Lord knows where that came from.) She also has baseball tickets stuck in the braid that’s also on the base of the brim.

This hat has been the source of my embarrassment since I can remember. Imagine being in high school, where your parents are an embarrassment anyway. And now, we add the hat. Other people love, this hat. They’ll stop her in the mall and ask to see her hat or simply tell her how much they love it.

I’ve always criticized her for the hat. And last year, she said “You will bury me with this hat, Suzie.” I laughed, “You bet I will, I never want to see that thing again!!”

This woman holds two college degrees and has a heart of gold. She’s an extremely wealthy woman but you’d never know it from the clothes and accessories that she wears. In fact, most people would take one look at her and judge her as just a crazy woman but she doesn’t care about any of that. She loves that damn hat.

The lesson there? Who cares what people think!! Be who you want to be and where all the crazy hats you want.

Lesson #3

My mother grew up in a wealthy family in New York. We have more lawyers, accountants, doctors and engineers in our family than anyone has a right to. As mentioned earlier, my mother holds multiple college degrees. And this is actually a family expectation. (My grandmother went back to college at the age of 69 to get hers!)

Back in her junior year of college she asked her dad if she could go to the University of Hawaii for one year. He made her promise that she’d come back after one year and marry a suitable man and settle down. He told her that all financial help would be cut off if she didn’t. She agreed.

That’s not how it played out. She went to Hawaii in 1959 to the University of Hawaii and fell in love with Hawaii--the friendliness, the casual lifestyle and the warmth of the people. She ended up graduating and paying for it herself by bartending. She also met and married my dad who was 14 years older than her who was also a bartender. I’m pretty sure there were no bartenders in our family up to that point.

So, here was a woman in 1959, a time when women were still mostly homemakers. They hadn’t yet even burned their bras! This young, 22-year old woman had the courage to leave the comfort of her home and family, travel thousands of miles away because she just didn’t feel a fit. She left everything she knew up to that point, to pursue her happiness. The courage that must have taken!

The lesson there? Life is short and getting shorter every single day. Live it your way and live it fully.

Wouldn’t life be amazing if we all lived by my mother’s rules? There’d be less depression-- people would accept themselves for who they are and not hold themselves up to other’s unrealistic expectations.

They’d choose to be happy instead of choosing to sacrifice who they are for money or other people.

There’d be more time for laughter and fun and doing what you love instead of doing what others think you should do.

Luckily for me, my mom is still very much alive and loves me to death. She’s taught me to find laughter and joy every day. I’m so grateful that my imperfect mother is mine—because she’s perfect for me.

Now, if I could just get her to leave the Dark Side (stop drinking Budweiser) and come over to Coors…