backwards.

Last June on its third day, my mom was driving me to the airport to fly to Seattle. I was planning to run a marathon, which would be followed up by some life lived out in the other Washington. Before the both of us was an abundance of unknown. I didn't know if I would finish twenty-six miles, or even what my cousin that was picking me up from the airport looked like. My mom wasn't sure the next time she would see me, and with her crazy worrying tendencies, if I would even live through the marathon; I had been cautioned on multiple occasions of the possibility of death from such distances. If there's even a minute possibility of disaster, I have been warned by my mother. Driving over a bridge, for example, means I could end up in the water with no way to roll my electric windows down. Naturally, she purchased for me a pressurized window breaker so I don't really have to worry about this disaster scenario any longer.

About ten minutes into the drive, she gets kind of serious and begins the sentence, "No matter where you are next year, there's just one thing I am going to ask you to do."

Based on the kinds of things she worries about, I really had no idea where the rest of the request would lead.

Then she started to cry. I was at a loss.

"Please just promise me that you will come back to go to your high school reunion."

Whaaa?

I had to hold back the childlike giggles.

Like so many mothers and daughters, we're almost always not on the same page. It has taken us a loooong time to learn how to actually communicate without getting angry at each other. Most of my early twenties, no matter what she said to me or how she said it, I heard, "hey there not good enough daughter. I wish you were completely different and more like me." My reaction to what I was hearing from her was enveloped in all things harsh and hateful, and though we've broken the cycle and do a much better job of not misinterpreting what the other is trying to say nowadays, I don't foresee us ever getting to the same page. This is one of the reasons there was so much weight and emotion within her request. In moments like that, when my definitively selfless mother who carried me in her womb and birthed me without any drugs and paid too much for my barely used college education and still calls to see if I need anything from the store...It's best of me to respond with compassion, and try try try to see her request through her eyes instead of mine.

Almost a year has passed since that conversation, which means it is the year of the reunion. I had managed to put the possibility out of my mind until the patriot act-esque wonders of Facebook brought reunion inquiries to the forefront of my computer screen. And so the thread began...

"Does anyone know if there's a plan for our reunion?"

"I think it's the job of the class officers."

"It's a little late to begin planning an event of that caliber. You better get in contact with your class officers soon."

"I think our class officers were Meredith, Shaya and Julie."

I waited it out as long as I could. I read what was being said, and in true procrastinator fashion, I didn't engage until I was called by name. I was the class president but I truly had no knowledge that reunion planning responsibility was part of the deal. I just wanted a little more recognition and accolades by my name. I officially relinquished responsibility to an eager classmate, and am left to not plan, which I excel at, and also, to sit with my mother's request.

If it were up to me and my soap box, I wouldn't go. I would tout Facebook's way of keeping us all up to date, and the fact that I already know more about former classmates than I would prefer. I would stand tall and exclaim that I have done a decent job of keeping in touch with those I wanted to, and that the rest aren't of much concern. I would refer to Romy and Michelle's high school reunion and think of disaster scenarios and depressing possibilities that would bring me down. These are all the things I would do if I didn't have a selfless mother, requesting a very simple thing from me.

This, I think, is why we have mothers and why were aren't just grown in laboratories and thrown into the mess to fend for ourselves. I was the class president, and whether or not that meant much to me, I represented something. My class was small, my school was small, and my town was in proportion to both of those things. Many of my classmates were the same through all thirteen years. My absence wouldn't be easily overlooked, and I would be viewed in the very light my mother wants me to avoid. This small world I speak of is a very big deal to her; She has invested much of herself in it over the years. Her request is saturated with a pride for the community she doesn't want me to be ashamed of.

She has cried mom wolf on so many occasions that I hesitate to listen. Most recently it was at the possibility of a stranger jumping in my car through its open window. Twenty-eight, and I am humbled by the fact that sometimes she still does know best, and in this case, she's round-about reminding me that it's best to avoid brat behavior.