My Mom’s Role in my Advocacy
Good Morning friends, when I was sitting down to brain storm what to write this week I again ran into this wall where there were eighteen things that I could think about but not exactly how to articulate into words. This was one of the topics that falls into this category but then I would feel bad and as though I was doing myself a disservice if I didn’t try so here goes nothing.
Let’s start with this I will forever be indebted to my parents and especially my mother because not only did she bring me and my brothers into this world she also never gave up on any of us. She pushed me to do everything my brothers did and she gave me those opportunities and more.
The first time I ever remembering embarrassing my mom was when I was in Kindergarten and I was upset that my day was thrown off because my OT didn’t show up and I was sure as hell not going to let go unnoticed and unpunished. So... what did I do next? I walked up to the teacher Mrs. Mertzloft and said
“I am supposed to be taken out of class for OT today why is this not happening,”
Apparently, that sentence coming out of the mouth of a five year old Caleb was not looked upon too kindly. I was told not to do that again by the teacher and got in trouble but when I got home my mom was red in the face and couldn’t help but laugh and say “It is a good thing you stood up for yourself but next time just don’t run your mouth that much”
This is when I knew my mom was going to let me have the reigns on this whole being a disabled person thing and not let me think I was incapable of try anything or that I was inferior to anybody.
I remember distinctly a day that changed my life forever. I got cut from the seventh grade basketball team (big surprise I know) I was upset and my mom came into the room and said put your shoes on we are going to basketball and I was thinking to myself is this woman delusional I was cut through my crying and carrying on she explains to me that I was going to try wheelchair basketball. Turns out through wheelchair basketball I meant two of my closest friends that have become family it reinvigorated my love of the greatest game in the world has ever invented. If Jesus came back to Earth and decided to play a sport it would be basketball the game is fair and just in every single way. Yet, I must digress. If my mom wouldn’t have given me that option of playing wheelchair basketball I probably would have given up on the sport that has given me so much in life.
One of the greatest memories that I love to bring up because I think it encapsulates everything you need to know about my mom and her sister’s attitude toward me and how they just saw me as a person. I was 12 years old and I just had major orthopedic surgery and we were in Minnesota and we were going to leave the hospital and go home and because my dad was working in Kansas City at the time my Aunt Lori came up from Wisconsin to help my mom take care of me and mind you I am non weight baring for six to eight weeks (as always I willed myself to be standing five weeks afterwards because I cannot to this day stand those wheelchairs that force your legs straight out in front of you, those are the most uncomfortable and inconvenient things known to the human race.) I was also in cast from the hips down on both sides and after a couple of margaritas at our favorite restaurant in the Twin Cities Area Rosalita’s in Eagan, Minnesota and mother polishing off a couple of house Margaritas on the rocks with salt she swears up and down that this is the only way to do drink them she and my aunt Lori proceed to put me in my wheelchair upside down and try to push me inside like that was completely f—-k— normal. We get halfway inside and I finally after collecting myself from laughing was like “something’s not right it just isn’t”
Once they figured it out you would have thought that they got to see Steve Harvey at the Apollo or Gallagher smash watermelon at Caesar’s.
This doesn’t even include the time she dumped me out of my wheelchair into a fountain at Disney’s Wide World of Sports or the time on the same trip she convinced the lady at the Magic Kingdom’s Princess experience that we were a make a wish family when in reality we were two years away from being a make a wish family.
Then when it came time to go to college she made a deal with me and that is that if I left the state of Missouri for school I was not allowed to move back home and for the most part I have kept my end of the bargain (even though she wishes I hadn’t). I got my first acceptance letter to the University of Kentucky and she had no Idea that I had even applied because she always thought I would only need to apply to three schools Southwest Minnesota State University Wichita State and the University of Kansas. I got the acceptance letter I get home from school and she told me that I had a big thick packet from Kentucky and she thought it was just junk mail and she thought about throwing it out because she thought it was Junk mail. I opened it and it was an acceptance letter and I damn near took her head off when she said “it said welcome to your new Kentucky home but I thought they just sent that to everybody.” Duh mom. Then I copped to applying with the help of my high school journalism teacher and dad because I didn’t want her to say “well you’ve wanted to go to Kansas your entire life what happened”
I also had no intention on getting in. UK was a pipe dream school for me I didn’t think they would even entertain a shitty application I did in 10 minutes in a computer lab that was converted from a bomb shelter when the school was built in 1959.
The last piece of advice I got from mom before I started my undergrad at Wichita State was this “What ever you do DO NOT and I REPEAT DO NOT BECOME A TEACHER!”
Oops...
I say all that to say this I am so grateful for both my parents but especially my mom because she taught me the importance of a few things.
The first is the importance of always staying true to yourself and faith. She taught me Philippians 4:13 “I can do all this through him who gives me strength,” That will always be with me.
The next thing she taught me was the importance of family because family helps family no matter what and that isn’t just the family you are born into it is the family you create along the way and I have been the luckiest person on Earth in that aspect. The family I have the one I was born into, and the one that I have built are everything to me.
Then there is the lesson of giving up on yourself is in her words giving every other clown in this world a free pass to give up on you too. That is one hundred percent the truth.
To me the most important lesson my mom instilled into me was the importance of failure. This seems a little backwards but one thing about my mom is that she is a perfectionist and that has done a little more than just rub off on me. I too try to be perfect when I was in high school she would pick me up from basketball and tell me to try something new and if I fail I fail. I tend to believe this has worked it has allowed me to live life a bit more free and unafraid of failure to extent because I can use it as a learning experience.
I am going to link a few songs that remind me of her below, I do not own the rights to the music but the YouTube is public so here is that.
Comments
Post a Comment