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Sam Starck
Professor Rebecca Morean
English 100 20
26 January 2015
Importance of a Mom
It is difficult to understand the relationship you have with your parents
when you are growing up and the reliance you are so familiar with becomes
overlooked because it seems as if that is just how it is and will always be. I grew
sick of my moms constant emotional struggle over the acceptance of college
coming and the seven hours that would soon separate us, but now looking back I
see how the aging of a child and the ultimate aging of a relationship changes so
much in such a short time when college comes around. The seemingly never
changing personality of my mother and the constant antagonistic motherly
curiosity was something I was ready to move on from and explore the freedoms of
college. Being the youngest of four kids, my mom has always had a special
relationship with me and it wasn't until recently that I understood the importance
of her role in my life and how some of the things that I hated most as a kid are
what I needed most.
In a moment of stress and anxiety where everything seemed to move in
slow motion and become a blur, my mom was the first to be calm and react the
way she needed to like she always manages to do. As the smell of melting paint
and scorched wood filled the air and the bright orange and red streams of flames
flowed from my neighbors house, there was only silence behind the crackle of the
destruction. As everyone stood in awe and my neighbors stared with blank faces

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as if they were watching some sort of movie, my mom knew that this was
something that they should not witness. She clearly made up her mind and acted
fast when her plan of action came into her mind. My mom walked over to my
neighbor and told her to bring her kids inside our house to keep them from seeing
the devastating destruction that was being done to what used to be their house.
This was one of my first instances where I realized the impact and influence my
mom can have and how caring and responsible she is. As everyone watched the
chaos taking place, she was the only one to know that my neighbors, including the
young children who lived there, and she saved them what could have been serious
traumatic devastation and shock.
My mom wasnt a typical mom and I always found it to be annoying and
weird but it was her special way of being there for me. As soon as I would get
home from school and walk into my house as all the stress and annoyance that
seems to encompass all high schoolers throughout the day struck me, my mom
would always be the first to greet me and acknowledge my obvious relief from the
nonsense of school. That is one of the times that I overlooked and misunderstood.
It was easy to get annoyed with those lame conversations about school, sports,
friends, and girls when talking to your mom because there are just some things
that are easier to keep to yourself, but my mom is the most understanding and
accepting person I know and she is where I learned the importance of a listener
and a speaker in a way that only she has ever taught me. There are times to talk
and there are times to listen and my mom was terrific at both of those. A mothers

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voice is something unforgettable and so familiar that it creates a comfort behind it
that allows for even the blandest of moments to create some meaning.
In the expected awkwardness that resides in every girl talk between son
and mother, my mom always had a way of turning the awkwardness into humor.
Behind the slight nervousness that was evident whenever girls were brought into a
topic, there was always a hidden hint of controlled excitement and approval to go
along with the sad fact that her son was getting older and growing up. My father
has always been a more serious man and his best moments are those when my
moms personality brings out the joy in him. In the awkwardest, saddest, or lamest
moments she is able to fit the situation and find fun for the boring times of day,
help reminisce over sadness, or calm down the madness when things would get
too rowdy.
I have always been shy in beginning situations but when I'm with those I
am familiar with, I begin to see where my similarity to my mother is. Socially, I
become outgoing and exciting and an overall enjoyable person and have the same
stupid sense of humor that my mother seems to have rubbed off on me. My mom
devotes herself to her children and family, and throughout her efforts of raising
two boys and two girls, she seemed to have accomplished herself in the
relationships that we all have today. With both of my sisters at Augustana College
and my brother and me and the University of Dayton, it reflects her endless
attempts to mend arguments and encourage my siblings to become my best
friends.

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I originally thought that parents feared when their children began to grow
up because it meant that they as parents, were also getting older, but I believe that
they resent aging because it creates a change that none of them are ever ready for.
As I continue to move on in my life and see myself becoming a new person at
college even now it makes it easy to see how the relationship with my mom has
allowed for me to wish for that type of friendship with my kids some day. The
things that seem to be a parents job is actually who she is and her devoting herself
to her children the same way she has devoted herself to everything that she wishes
to succeed in.