A dog!

I have this memory. It's fuzzy and incomplete and maybe, possibly, not real. My momma and I are on a trip to Shreveport for one of my all too familiar pediatry check-ups. This time, we took the 15 passenger van with a group of other children traveling to the Shriner's Hospital. Maybe we stopped somewhere when my mom and I had this conversation, maybe it was in the van. There is a picture within this memory that appears more obvious to me. I can see wooden blinds, fake trees in the corner of an office. The setting of my mom's story, of her memory, is more clear than my own memory of hearing the story. My mom told me a story of her graduate school days, of how she out-smarted the system, I like to think. She had been given clear instructions to remain neutral and unbiased when administering a test. Children are receptive of their performance and it's difficult when a child gets something "wrong" not to say something like , "Almost...", and the same is true of when a child does well on a portion to not say, "Good!".  I picture my mom sitting on the floor around a coffee table, giving an IQ test to a young girl. My mom recalled that when she was giving the tests, she figured out that she could just repeat the answer the child had given. For example, when the child said, "a dog", my mom would say, "a dog!". I'm not sure why this story was told or what we were talking about previously. At the time I remember thinking how clever my mom was for figuring out a better way and that she must be the smartest woman ever. It was clear that her professors were impressed, or at least approving. They've never seen anyone in their school as smart as her, I thought.

I still think of that story on a regular basis. Now, as I am starting my journey into the academic world of graduate school, this story takes on a new meaning to me. Perhaps my mom wasn't telling me this story to impart some deeper lesson, maybe she was just telling me that story because someday, my professors would give me the task of administering a test with which I must remain unbiased. Now, I know how to do that. Now, I can impress my professors and maybe my daughter will think I am the smartest woman ever.

When I think of my childhood, I never think of missing my mom all the time, or feeling a mom-shaped void. I think of my streamer tables, and the canopy she made me for my bed, and the time that I got something like 4 Barbies all in one big box for Christmas. I think of how the sight of her purple Grand-Am pulling into the driveway, and the sound of the garage door opening made my day and gave me such giddy excitement-even though I may have not acted like it. And now, when I think of my young adulthood, I think of a mom who has been there, who has the experience and has made the mistakes. I think of someone who will be there to encourage and support me and will be the only one in my little world that really understands what I'm going through. So that when I call her on my drive back from my practicum, crying because I miss my daughter, she will say something like, "I know, baby...". And that will be all I need to hear.