Whispered Words of Wisdom

"All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my Angel Mother." --Abraham Lincoln

I tend to think I'm a fairly good person. I like me. As you can tell by this point in my blog at least 23 other people like me. I think that I'm only partially to credit for this. I mean, part of my likableness is simply things that I control, or that were gifts from God. My contagious laughter being one. My cute wife being another. People like me for these things, and I'm sure others.

However, I want to take a moment to share a little bit of who ELSE made me this way, and even who helped make others this way, as well. That would be my mom. My mom has been 29 for *[redacted]* years. Some say it's the Nutrogena. Others will swear up and down that it's the love of all things Disney that courses through her veins, and interestingly enough, all over the walls of our home. And the floors. And the dining ware. And the closets. And the DVD shelf. And her internet history. Still others will say it's the delights of having such children as myself, my sister and the monsters still at home. I think those things are part of it. The biggest part of it is the things that she thinks though. The way my mom views the world has not only caused her to be a delight to be around, it has also positively influenced her darling children [me] her other three children, many of our friends and even dear cousin Steven who spent far too much time in our home growing up.

My mom, especially for my family, is relatively quiet. She doesn't respond in any way that's really over the top, so when she responds strongly to something, it's easy to see how genuine she is.

So I want to share some of the things that my mom said.Some are self-explanatory. Others may require a little bit of back story  My original idea for this post was to write 100 of these and be done with it, but I think it's far more fitting to write as many as I can think of now, and add to it as the list grows. I'll break these into three categories  1.) Expectations -- what my mom hoped I would be, or do, or what she expected in terms of my actions. 2.) Warnings. Some more grave than others, but all not wise to trifle with. 3.) General Wisdom. these are things my mom said that were just gems to hang onto.

Expectations

"My hope is that by the time you have left my home, you are a decent human being." This not meaning decent as in "average" but decent as in good, and fair.

"Be Kinder than you have to be. Much Kinder"

"A Clean room is a Happy Room" or "A Clean room is it's own reward."

"A job worth doing is worth doing well, and doing so the first time."

"It doesn't roll downhill." This comes from times when I would be angry and lash out at my little brothers, because I could. It was a reminder that my anger needed to stay targeted, if I was to have it at all. It couldn't be allowed to hurt those hadn't instigated it.

"I just ask that you don't throw the first punch." My mom was always ok with defending ourselves and others. We just couldn't instigate. The number of times my mom would call bullying for what it was is a large number indeed.

"Act your age, not your shoe size."

"Ok, fine. 17... 9." This was in relationship to, again, the way I treated my little brothers. As a 17 year old I was held to somewhat higher of an expectation than the 9 year old brother.

"If I thought you were only smart enough to get C's, I'd be ok with you getting C's."

"School is your number one job right now. Everything else comes second."

"Those are other people's children. I expect better." My mom always made it very clear that simply because "someone else" did something, didn't mean she was ok with it.

"No one can MAKE you feel that way." and "No one can MAKE you do anything."

**"Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." This was for the many times I'd forget something and make outrageous demands of my mother. My mother let me fail as many times as I would allow myself to in order to teach me that someday I'd have to take care of my own stuff. I still fail at this in some ways, but I'm infinitely better off than I was. And, often, my mother, after telling me this, would meet my outrageous demands.

Warnings

"If you do drugs, I will Kill you." You know those commercials that come on TV that say, "talk to your kids about drugs?" This was our conversation. I've been clean for 8,555 days and counting.

"Do that again and I will break you into so many millions of tiny pieces, they'll need a vacuum cleaner and a magnifying glass to find all of you." But always said with love.

"I'm going to hug you until you hug me back." When I got angry, sometimes this is how she'd calm me down.

*"You're only hurting yourself." This would happen anytime my parents would let me get out of timeout, or back away from whatever threats they imposed, and I would, out of spite, hang on to it. When I wouldn't come to dinner, or when I'd stay angry, or when I wouldn't do things that benefited me because I was being stubborn, this was the truth I got from my mom.

"Soap." We didn't say a lot of bad words around my mom.

"You will always be in less trouble if you tell the truth. Lying will make it worse, every time."

"If you act like you're six, I'll treat you like you're six." This ties in with many other things my mom said, but ultimately, it came down to the difference between rights and privileges. Few things are rights. Many are privileges.

"You're still not to old to be spanked." I think I am now, but apparenlty I wasn't as a teenager.

Gems

"Sometimes all you can do is be there to pick up the pieces." this was told to me in relationship to a conversation I had with my mom about a friend who was making really stupid choices and had ceased listening to me as a friend. It's been a good reminder at times to wait until people are ready to listen to talk, and a helpful reminder to me that I can't stop people hell bent on being stupid from being stupid. I can make it clear that I care, and I don't approve, but that's as far as it goes sometimes. Then you just have to be there to pick up the pieces.

"Your life would have been very different if I had died. I just can't believe either of your grandmothers would ever have thrown gummy bears at your head."

"I'm the Mom. I know everything." This was true for many reasons, but not the least of which is that she'd never dodge a question. If I asked my mom anything, she'd tell me "I don't know" or what she really felt. She didn't hide anything from us unless she had to.

"When other people would ask me if I miss you terribly, I would tell them, no, of course not. I'd much rather have him there then here right now." This is how my mom would respond when people would ask if she wished I was home when I was and LDS missionary for two years and didn't call home but 4 times.

"I can be your friend, or I can be your mother, but if you make me choose, I'm going to be your mother."

*"I want you to imagine this scenario. Imagine that everyone in the world could put their problems into a box. Those problems could be anything from not having friends, to papercuts, to cancer to a bad day. It could be any number of things big or small. Now, if everyone got together with their boxes, and we all walked around and looked in everyone else's box, we'd see things that vary far from our own. I think, at the end of the day, we'd come back to our own box, and be grateful for our own problems."

My mother is great, and she's great because what she wants most is to be a great mom. She does many things, but to her, she's happiest when we're happy and successful. I hope everyone has, or some day gets to be, a parent like that.

*Posts not in the original
**Post from the most recent update
***Most recent update: May 10, 2013

Mr. IV

Is everyone ready for a little Roman Numeral humor? Great! I have a friend today, who I will call Mr. IV, because I've known him "IVever!" Get it?. Oh-ho! Classic.

My parents had some best friends who had IV sons. Two of them were fairly close to my own age, and even though my family moved a lot growing up, these friends were always a part of our lives. Today, I'm going to talk about the oldest son, Mr. IV. Mr. IV has always been really a good natured sort. He has a really loud infectious laugh that makes you laugh even if things stink. Our childhood friendship included things like jumping on the trampoline in his backyard, playing computer games, planning to recreate movies (like Anastasia) in play form for our parents, telling jokes, swimming, and doing all the fun things that kids do. When my family lived in California, his mom came out with him and his brothers to visit us even though they lived in Utah. We have pictures of all of us at the beach being buried in the sand and having sand boobs. We were kind of weird.

As we got older, my family moved to Utah, but our families kind of grew apart a little, and we didn't see each other as often, but when we did, we had a good time. I still think of Mr. IV's family like my cousins. I love 'em to death. When we graduated high school, Mr. IV and I hung out more. He wasn't as comfortable around girls as I was, so I set him up on a date one time when we went to the only decent Roller Coaster park in Utah. Unfortunately, I set him up with his 2nd cousin. He laughed about it and had a good time. We both left on our LDS missions around the same time, and we got to see each other off as he went to Europe, and I went to the best state in the USA to share the good news.

Jump ahead a few years, and of our two families that were really close, he and I probably talk the most out of anyone on either side. That doesn't amount to much since we only talk from time to time. But we still hung out a enough to know what was happening in one another's lives. When I was dating my then-future-wife, we went to the Malt Shoppe near us and sang along with a Karaoke machine "One Week"  by the Barenaked Ladies in harmony, which highly impressed my girlfriend at the time. We did several other things together where I feel like I did my small part in encouraging him to ask out a girl he really liked, and he totally manned up and went for it.

As things got serious between them, she knew she had to tell him something that may very well make or break their relationship. Mr. IV's girlfriend at the time had MS, for which there is no known cure. Mr. IV wasn't deterred. He totally loved this girl, and married her. They have the same struggles as a lot of new married couples (we're all a little young and a little poor) but he's happy. You know why? Because he's always happy. He just is.

I've reread and tinkered with the writing of this post a little bit. In all honesty, I can't quite depict this friend very well. We've been friends forever. I'm glad I have him. He is optimistic, and I think he likes everyone. He's not a doormat, but he's got a good heart, and I think it's the epitome of masculinity to be willing to marry someone who he may have to take care of while she's suffering for a long time. I hope they find a cure, and I'm sure he does, too. But it's not like he's going to jump ship if they don't.  I really look up to my friend.