May 15, 2006

Moms and Little Monsters

Okay, I’ll admit it.  Growing up I was a little monster. 

Being the youngest of three children I was the chief mess-maker and mischief-seeker. My mother is probably eligible for sainthood for raising me without strangling me.  Like most moms, she had to put up with the typical things little monsters do.  Crayon drawings on the walls.  Mud tracks through the living room.  Crumpled crackers between couch cushions.  Socks flushed down the toilet, etc.  I was even known to drink the occasional bottle of mom’s perfume—which sent her into a panic and both of us to the emergency room.

But the true test of moms endurance happened when I was two and a half years-old.  My sisters are five and ten years older than me so dad had taken them off to school.  Mom had already had a hectic morning getting the girls ready, fixing breakfast and packing lunches.  Meanwhile, I had my own agenda.  First was jumping up and down on my parents newly made bed and throwing Mom’s neatly arranged pillows around the room.  Then, by the side of the bed, I spied a clean laundry basket of freshly folded clothes.  Grabbing shirts, pants and underwear by the handful I threw them into the air and watched them float down.  They landed on dressers, lamps, nightstands, the bed and the floor.  I was about to toss my dad’s last dress shirt into the air when my mother walked in.  Looking up at her with my most angelic smile I thought perhaps she had come to join in the fun.  After all, I was having a blast jumping on the bed and throwing clothes around. 

As her eyes swept the room wreckage I didn’t sense much joy in her expression.  Then, when I heard my full name, I knew I was in trouble. 

“William Todd Chobotar!  What in the world…?!”

I suppose I should have expected it.  I knew my mother tried hard to keep a clean house, but my mission as mommy’s little monster focused on finding creative ways of creating a mess. 

Sending me to my room, mom started cleaning the carnage.  No sooner had her work begun and the phone rang.  Mom picked it up in her bedroom and began talking to her sister in Canada.  Seeing the chance to slip out of my room I wandered into the kitchen and noticed breakfast hadn’t been cleared from the table yet.  That’s when I got a brilliant idea…

A few minutes later, Mom suddenly stopped her phone call in mid-sentence.  Everything in the house was quiet.  Too quiet. 

“Todd?” she called out.

“Yes, Mommy.”

“What are you doing, sweetheart?”

“Nothing, Mommy.”

She didn’t believe that for a second.  Telling her sister she would call back mom hung up the phone and came looking for me.  What greeted her eyes as she entered the living room caught her off guard.  Here’s what she saw: 

A trail of breakfast cereal started at the foot of the kitchen table and traveled through the dinning room into the living room all the way to the fireplace at the far end of the house.  There the trail turned and made it’s way back to the kitchen.  Following this path was a tousled-haired toddler walking the trail carefully pouring milk over the cereal. 

Mom was struck speechless.  Her carpet.  Her kitchen.  Her living room!  A milk and soggy cereal disaster area!  Reaching for the phone she dialed my dad’s office.  “Honey,” she said slowly.  “Come…get...YOUR...son.  I’m about to go crazy.”

In retrospect, I’m lucky mom didn’t give me to the circus, sell me to the gypsies, or leave me in the forest to be raised by wolves.  She probably felt like it and I probably deserved it.  But though I often tried my mother’s patience, one thing I never doubted was her love.  It was in every diaper she changed, every ouwie she kissed, every cookie she baked, every sacrifice she made, every mess she mended, every hug she offered and every prayer of protection she prayed. 

No matter how strong my selfishness, mom’s love was stronger.

No matter how bad my behavior, mom’s love was always greater.

King Solomon once wrote, “The godly walk with integrity; blessed are their children who follow them.”  (Proverbs 20:7 NLT)  I guess that’s what I feel.  Blessed.  Blessed to have a mother who walked with integrity, lived with sincerity and loved whole-heartedly.

So today, I want to say, thanks Mom.  I have lived in the light of your love my whole life long.  And I will continue to both now and for eternity.  I am blessed forever because of you.

Happy Mother’s Day.

“My son, obey your father’s commands, and don’t neglect your mother’s instruction.  Keep their words always in your heart.”  Proverbs 6:20-21 NLT

Todd Chobotar
Mission Development
Florida Hospital