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(Mothers' Day 2018)

Growing up in a household with two mothers, I often wondered what the word ‘normal' meant; if there was a difference in the way I was being raised to the way my friends or classmates were, or in a greater sense, to the way America as a whole was being raised. In my search I would often turn to movies and TV shows for an answer, as if seeing this so-called ’normalcy' portrayed on the screens would allow me to live vicariously through the stories and lessons they were telling.

It took me years into adulthood to realize the wealth of stories and knowledge my own mothers not only had, but had also imparted onto me and my sister as we grew up, and how the lessons they taught me were better than anything I saw on the screens I felt I had grown up in front of alone. Stories on how to be brave when you’re alone in a new world. Lessons on how to not just win the first fight, but all the ones after that and why sometimes it’s the right thing to do. The knowledge of how to stand up on your own two feet when no one else will show you how or how important it was to be truthful with your own words and the weight of responsibility in your own actions.

Both of my mothers taught and gave me my strength, no one else. With every fear I have ever felt, I have also always felt them behind me, one of them laughing in its face and the other praying for my safe passage. This knowledge has always given me the courage to do and say the things that are necessary; because it is always necessary. From my first word to all my steps between now and forever, their influence breathes and lives on through everything I have ever written and everything I will ever do. It is ultimately, I believe, one of the best things I can ever return to them