Choosing My Battles

When I was in the fourth grade I called my mother one night while staying the night with my girlfriend Nicole. Nicole wanted to cut my hair and I called to check if it was okay with my mom first. My mother said that it was fine, only under the stipulation that she would not take me to the salon to have it fixed the next day. I thought this reasonable, after all Nicole told me she had cut other peoples hair before (ahhh, yes the experience of a nine-year-old).

Nicole cut my hair, and although I had no bald spots, it was definitely the work of a nine-year-old. A few weeks later my mother did take me to the salon where my hairstylist stood behind me and grabbing the very incongruent lengths on either side of my head, looked into the mirror with wide eyes and said, “Who did this to you?”

Years later I asked my mom why she let Nicole cut my hair. My mother told me, “As a parent you have to pick your battles. Hair grows back, it was nothing for me to ever get upset about.”

This last weekend I found out some horrible information. Lalo’s mom, my California mama… the woman that we have our weekly dinners with and see often… has been diagnosed with a malignant inoperable tumor. We will get more details today from the doctor, but obviously this was a huge blow to all of us. Many tears have been shed this last weekend in between LJ’s mom in the hospital and Lalo’s mama. Honestly I just want to crawl back into bed a sleep this reality away.

Saturday night on our way to visit mama, she called LaLo and said that she had decided that she wanted to go out to dinner with us. This was huge, mom hadn’t seemed like she would want to do anything for a long time just previously in the day. So we eagerly headed over to take mom out to some Chinese food.

While we were in her kitchen getting ready to leave, she gulped down the last few sips of soda out of a can and then burped. Lalo said, “Mom! God! That’s disgusting!” I looked over and said, “I am sure we have all done worse than a little burp in our own home before.”

We headed out the door and mom grabbed her favorite scarf and put it on. LaLo got upset again, “Mom why are you wearing that? That doesn’t even match your outfit!” I looked at Lalo and grabbed the biggest hat that I could find and put it on my head. Looking at Lalo I said, “They’re fucking clothes… who cares,” and proceeded to walk to the car in my oversized, yet too tight for my head hat. The evening proceeded with a few more incidents like these.

Please don't get me wrong, it's not like I never would comment to someone about their choice of clothing. I am the first to look at one of my friends and say, “I certainly hope you weren’t planning on wearing that out in public.” However, I also am the first to get completely dressed up with my niece in princess clothes and head out for a day of girlie fun.

As we got home I stopped Lalo prior to getting out of her car. I said, “We don’t know how much longer your mother has here on this earth. I think that you will be extraordinarily sad to look back on the last months that you had with her and realize that you were bitching at her about the mundane things that really don’t fucking matter.” We discussed it a bit further and I hope that she realizes what have been the words pouring forth from her mouth.

I get that people deal with grief, and life for that matter, in different ways. But if we really treated each person like this might be the last days that we have with them, wouldn’t it just be so much more pleasant. We would see the battles that we needed preparation for and, in turn, realize those things that really don’t matter. After all, hair grows back.