Happy Mother's Day

Why I love my mom:

On this rainy Portland mother’s day, I thought I’d write about how I’ve been lucky to have a great mom. I was having this discussion with one of my friends the other day, my parents are divorced, so the odds are definitely against me to turn out into a half decent human being. Thinking back to the conversation, I probably beat the odds because I grew up with the best mom in the world. I think pretty much all of my good qualities, in some way come from my mom.

For starters, growing up, I saw a great example of how I should conduct myself in society. In some way or another my mom has always ended up getting plugged into community and making herself helpful.

My mom lives in an apartment complex right now, and unlike houses or neighborhoods, these sorts of complexes tend to be unsocial places. I don’t know the name of anybody else that lives in my complex, and I pretty much treat it as my solitary retreat to sleep and eat. But my mom has joined the board at her complex, making decisions about the community, holding meetings in her home, and just generally becoming friends with her apartment-mates.

At the Japanese Language School I attended while I was growing up, my mom saw that the school wasn’t getting the funding it needed, so she started a small-scale bake sale. As its popularity caught on, other moms got involved, and it grew into a huge fundraising movement. I graduated from the school about six years ago, but my mom went back to the school recently, and learned that the bake sale still lived on! The ladies there were in awe to meet the legend that had started the Japanese School bake sale.

She spends her free time at work getting plugged in with the multicultural community and leadership. Following the earthquakes that ravaged Northern Japan, she helped organize a fundraising effort, folding countless origami cranes, even being asked to film an instructional video. Since leaving her home, I’ve tried my best to follow her lead and get involved in my community, both at Kenyon and here in Portland.

But I love my mom most because she always cares about me. She always understands who I am. She knows I have to throw myself into my life, and that I’ll always be busy. I appreciate that she stays patient with me when I sound stressed out talking to her on the phone, or selfishly can’t scrape together the time to call her for weeks at a time because I’m overloaded in stress. I love that even after weeks of not talking, she can still sound just as happy to talk to me, and support all of my far-reaching ventures. I know I wouldn’t be able to do all that I do without knowing that somewhere out there, someone over on the other side of the coast is thinking about me.

So anyways, that’s why I love my mom.

from ken

PS – I didn’t just write this because I forgot it was mother’s day, and didn’t send a card.

Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com