My mom loves telling embarrassing stories about me. I mean she really enjoys it. One of her favorite baby pictures of me was taken with me kissing my little brother on the cheek (I think we were like three and two respectively at the time) in an effort to help him get over his since resolved fear of large flash bulbs. You can imagine how embarrassed I would get when Mom would show that picture to friends, girlfriends, the cleaning lady, the UPS guy, etc.
Well it's Mother's Day, my favorite of all the bullshit Hallmark holidays because well, I'm a mama's boy. My friend Brownman and I used to discuss what it means to be a mama's boy. In families without divorce, a mama's boy is just a guy who runs and cries to his mom every time he needs help. But for children of divorce, a mama's boy is a boy who elects to live with his mother (primarily) instead of his father. This says nothing bad about my dad who is by all accounts an awesome guy, it just means that I'm a mama's boy.
And in honor of that tradition, I am going to tell to you one of the cute and embarrassing stories my mom loves to tell friends, neighbors and relatives in order to make sure that I blush. Mom loves watching me blush.
When I was a small child in Holland, Michigan (a place I have little to no memory of because we moved away before I hit pre-school), my mother and I walked by a nativity set and I started asking questions. One of my questions involved the halo over Jesus' head. Mom told me that the halo was a symbol of holiness. I immediately started grabbing at the air above my head and then asked, “Ain't I holy?”
She told me I was. Mothers are not above lying when it comes to making their children feel good.
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Now that I'm good and embarrassed, I just want to wish my mom a happy Mother's Day. She's a minister and rarely gets this day off, which must suck. But I'll bet she doesn't mind.
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Happy Mother's Day, Mom.