Ever since I was born, I have been a momma's boy. When I was younger, I would not allow her to leave my sight. I remember a time when she tried to leave my brother and I with a babysitter. I cried and cried, and she still made me stay. Determined as I was, I got into the passenger seat and sat adamantly. In elementary school, middle school, and even into the beginning of High School, I would miss days of school on purpose in order to venture with her. Those were the only days I could spend one on one time with her. While I played hooky we would see movies, go shopping, eat out at various restaurants, and vent what was on our minds.

My mother is the reason for who I am today. She taught me to read when I was two. When I drew things, her lips parted into an expression of delight while she confidently assured me that I would be an artist. I remember the first drawing I ever showed her was the head of a Tyranosaurus Rex. She cut it out, framed it, and adorned it with multicolored flakes of construction paper. From then on I was more inclined to press pencil to paper, and I particularly enjoyed portraying dragons. Anything I showed interest in, she supported. When I was in theatre in the second grade, my mother told me what a great actor I was, eliminating any fear of disapproval. When it really comes down to it, the only opinion that truly mattered was my mother's, and all the encouragement only motivated me to try more and more. I loved making her happy. She has always loved me unconditionally, enlightening me to the fact that love is truly all you need. She never hid a damn thing from me, even information that others would find detrimental to youth. I, however, am glad she did not attempt to shelter me from the real world, treating me with maturity beyond my years. I hope that someday, when I am a parent of my own children, I can project the same love, security, and encouragement that my mother gave to me. I want them to know that they can be whatever they want in the world, that kindness and honesty will bring success, and that they should know I support them in every way fatherly possible. I will never use physical force as a form a discipline, for I believe that teaches them one thing-- hurting others can solve your problems. Only the gentlest of touch, worthy of Jesus Christ himself, will be layed upon them.

My mother has had a lot of difficulties in her life. She was not treated as she should have been as a child, particularly by her male role models. Her first son, my half brother, was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy when he was six years old, from which he will die. She has had to care for him by herself for many years. He needs to be moved several times a night, he needs a breathing apparatus, help to eat, shower, and go to the bathroom. His absolute dependence is haplessly accompanied by a nasty temper. Her first real husband, my biological father, buried my Poke'Mon in our backyard, protecting us from their evils. She is now married to David Johnson, an alcoholic who believes my mother and I are in love and that we want to be married. He has hit my mother on several occasions and I have called the police, causing him to blame me for each situation. Dave speaks negatively about me on a daily basis, making my mother want to drink. Once she starts, she does not stop.

In recent years, my mother has had an addiction to Alcohol. When my mother is intoxicated, she is not my mother. She is not understanding, but judgmental. She is not encouraging, but critical. She basks in negativity. For reasons unknown, she speaks in the voice of a child. Before I began standing up for myself, I would get tormented for nothing on a daily basis. One day, my mom broke a pickle jar pulling it out of the fridge. Dave and my mom yelled at my friend I, took my computer, and blamed me for the whole situation. In the beginning, I despised her for it. I begged her to acknowledge that her actions were unreasonable and that she would realize it in the morning, as she always did. Of course, this attempt at reason never succeeded. Once it got to the point where she was drunk on a daily basis, I couldn't talk to her for days at a time, and she stopped realizing when she was wrong. Her memory of events were too skewed. The random chaos and lack of reason made me crazy. I could not stand it, so I needed to leave. I could not leave, because I didn't want my mother to suffer alone.
However, at other times, my mom is in a different kind of drunkeness. She always defends me in arguments with Dave, and she always tells me how much she loves me. This is wear it becomes brutal on my emotions-- hearing my mother pathetically defend my actions, speaking childishly. When I am high with friends, it's very easy to laugh off. It's nothing.

One night, I consumed two grams of psychadelic mushrooms. Before the trip began, I entered my house with two friends of mine. Dave was away, and my mom was laying in bed. I went to greet her. She was plastered, sprawled all over the bed. She spoke the words as a five-year-old would say them, "I love you so much, Alec." I assured her that I was safe and that I loved her too. I shut the door and waited for the shrooms to kick in. That night I was outside exploring until dawn. I had the strangest night of my life. I felt that I truly understood that everything had a reason, a concept I find easy to believe due to the fact that, if it is false, all suffering is in vain. Everything I saw had a very symbolic meaning to it. When I came home, I hydrated myself before sitting on the white stone deck in my backyard. When I sat down, I saw a bottle on the floor. The contents had spilled all over the stone. Evidently, my mom had dropped it there. I stared. I wept.

I began to think of how everything truly made me feel, I thought of my mom piteously telling me how much she loved me through closed eyes and the grin you could hear, followed by a giggle stifled by the pillow in her face. I thought of how my mother's alcohol usage had intensified after finding out that I had been smoking marijuana for months. She would keep drinking and I would keep smoking, both off in our own worlds, trying to ignore the one we share. I got the feeling I was losing something very important to me, I felt that my mom was killing herself, so sad a notion that I had no choice but to turn away. I received less emotional pain from the way my mother treated me while she was drunk than my awareness of the psychological turmoil she was going through. Thinking of what my mom was doing to herself made me die a little on the inside. I wanted to run, but running could not make things better. When you are suffering from the pain of another, there is nowhere you can run. You have to sit and wait and watch the decadence of a young, radiant, loving mother as she tries to escape reality by the use of a mind-altering drug.

My mother is the most important person in my world. I love her with every fiber of my being. She means more to me than she could possibly understand. If I were to lose her, I would lose myself. As long as my mother loves me, nothing else matters. From all I have learned, I could not have asked for a more appropriate candidate to raise me. I want more than anything to share this kind of love with others someday. I will love unconditionally and unwaveringly, the way my mother loved me, with one slight exception: the absence of alcoholism, which I know she will overkome.

AlecParker (15)  MySpace URL: http://www.myspace.com/meamsnuffles