Some days I like to look back on my past and laugh. Yes laughing at your mistakes in life are the only way to survive the stresses that life hands you. I really don’t know how my dad and mom survived eight kids and all the others who somehow always found our door step. More often then not my mom always took in strays whether they were people or animals, that’s just the way she was.
I remember back when I was about fifteen years old. I was not an innocent child by no means, while I was not a bad person, I just did not think. When you have so many people under one roof you tend to let some of them influence you.
It is no secret now that when I was a teen I did smoke pot. Yes I even inhaled. Nickle bags were cheap and it seemed to me that everyone was doing it. Now my parents knew us kids were not angels but I don’t think they ever thought that we would become like “those other kids in the neighborhood”. You know the one’s as you probably had a few who you where banned from speaking too. Let’s face it, at that age you tried to get away with whatever you thought you could.
One day we were called to the dinner table after my dad got home from work. This was typically how things went. Well this day there was a little surprise decorating the middle of the table. Yes nicely potted, there it stood for all the world to see. What is that, omg is that what I think it is, how the hell did mom get a pot plant and does she even know what it is? Those are the questions that were racing through my mind. Then I saw it, that gleam in my mothers eyes that said one of you kids is guilty and I am here to sweat you out. I sit at the table trying my best not to look at the plant. My brothers and sisters were sitting there with there mouths ready to catch the next fly to buzz in. My dad has his scowl going. Oh fudge (now we know that was not quite the word I was thinking of). There sits mom looking at each kid, one by one. Oh she is good at this. Finally after what seemed a lifetime she speaks. “Look what your father and I found growing on the side of the house”. “You kids wouldn’t know who planted this would you” she says as she begins looking at each kid again. Her eyes lock on me and by now my mind is trying to come up with a million and one excuses. Play dumb, play dumb dammit you are giving yourself away my mind is screaming at me. Well the plant just happened to be growing right under my window and the way mom was staring me down I had no choice but — to lie. Hey give me a break here, I was fearing for my life right then. So I speak up and say, “Well I found these seeds and I wanted to see what they were, then after they started growing I just wanted to see how big it would get”. Mom looks at me real hard and says” You do know what this is don’t you”. Now I knew playing dumb at this point would probably get me grounded for life so I acknowledge that yes indeed I know. “Where did you find the seeds” she says. Opps, I didn’t see that coming. “I don’t remember exactly” is my reply and my mom give me the look like, do you really think I believe that.
After that my mom just shrugged her shoulders and back to eating we went. See my mom knew all along it was me and she also knew I was lying, but instead of throwing a tantrum and grounding me for life, she did one better. She made me think.
I learned a valuable lesson that day. Never grow a pot plant anywhere where your parents are going to find it. Just kidding although I think back then that is what I thought. Oh and that pot plant remained on the dinner table that whole dinner.
Years later I recalled that story when my mom was still alive. We used to laugh about it. My mom enjoyed telling that story for years and yes I did confess the truth to her later in life, but she already knew. See my mom was not just my mother but also my best friend.
Love you always mom.