research My Mother is My Best Friend: Writer

my mother is my best friend

WE’VE COME A LONG WAY BABY!

WORDS BY NAIMA KARP

Mother–daughter relationships are forces of nature and can be among the most powerful bonds that exist in this world. They’re simultaneously filled with beauty, frustration, destructiveness, and rebirth. A mother’s place in society has always been to doubt herself—from pregnancy to postpartum. So, when we embark on the journey of motherhood, it’s filled with self-scrutiny instead of celebration of baby steps and major accomplishments alike.

We need to start giving mothers more confidence instead of dismissing them or pitting them against each other until they can’t see their own worth. When I look at my own mother, I ruminate on our relationship and the many complicated journeys it has undergone over the years. I’m grateful for every one of them. Today, I proudly call her my best friend. She’s a startling reflection of myself and the first person I call when things are going south. Mothers see themselves in their daughters, and I find that our similarities, not our differences, were often the reason we would butt heads when I was younger.

My mother had me at the age of 40 in December 1991. A few days later, with me wrapped in her arms, we stayed awake hours past my dad and brother, watching the Times Square ball descend as 1992 arrived.

My brother was born prematurely six years before me. My mom had tough pregnancies with both of us but remembers being particularly insecure over her lack of experience with my brother. Her first time getting pregnant was a breeze, but it wasn’t as easy when it came to me a few years later. After she found out I was a girl, everything changed for her, as she says, “not because of my age—but because I knew that this was when I had to step up and be to my daughter the mother I wanted to have.”

My mother is too kind to me when it comes to our rollercoaster of an emotional evolution, saying that from her end, there were “so many highs and few lows.” We both value the lessons learned from the difficult times, and she remembers trying to make it through those moments with superhuman strength, “like mothers who lift cars off their babies.” She was never the mom to leave me crying with modern self-soothing tactics. She swaddled me in love and support from every birthday to my graduation. Some would call it coddling, but I feel lucky to have someone with her warmth and light in my corner.

I may have received the purest concentration of her love, but she always treated those around her with equal support and empathy. My mom was a teacher at the same school I attended, and while this was sometimes an overwhelming embarrassment at the time, I look back with such pride at the role she took on with her students. Though strict at times and not afraid to call kids out, she created a safe space that left a legacy of compassion around her name and reputation. I remember often waiting outside her classroom after school as she had a heart-to-heart with a student that needed to get something off their chest, academic or personal.

I went to a private school with kids whose parents had a much higher income bracket than ours. Think pretentious middle schoolers in designer outfits chauffeured to school in limos. It wasn’t my scene, and I acted out by spending time with older kids in my neighborhood who often skipped out on school, drank, and smoked. I fibbed when she had suspicions, which created an environment of mistrust and bad energy. I could tell she was acting out of fear, helplessness, and protectiveness, which she confirmed years later in our adult relationship.

As an older mother, she went through menopause when I was still rather young and went through all the ups and downs of the hormonal insecurity and paranoia. Our house was a constant freezer due to her hot flashes. With such a gap in our age, I could barely grasp what menopause was, and I found myself irritated with this erratic behavior coming from a generally logical person. Due to the late onset of her menopause, she produced an excess of estrogen, which led to breast cancer. Luckily, with some experimental medication, she found herself in remission and never had to do chemotherapy.

I had already suffered from depression, and my mom’s diagnosis made things worse. When I went through mental health struggles as a teen and self-harmed, my mother walked in on me in the act, cutting my thigh. Some might have responded by closing the door and walking out, or having their own emotional breakdown, but my mother reacted with the instincts of fierce love that she always has, channeling it into a rage as she grabbed the knife from me, telling me that she gave birth to me, and she wouldn’t stand by and watch me hurt myself. And although that might seem like a tense moment between us, what came through was the same quality that demonstrated her strength as a mother—that the priority was to love me and make sure I felt loved.

This priority was essential to her, as my grandmother and mother have always had a rocky relationship. My grandma experienced her own mother’s trauma, which caused her to devalue love, ultimately affecting my mom and her childhood. My mother recently found her peace and closure after a discussion with my grandma, who lives in a nursing home. At the time, she was 68 years old, and my grandmother was 100. I’m so grateful that my mother and I never let resentment or pettiness settle in our own relationship and that we were always able to break things down in conversation. Mom is a goddess of optimism, which is another major reason that she’s my person. Through all her tumultuous life experiences, she never stopped believing in love and relationships, and she passed that value on to me.

Our love is still growing today, and I’m eternally grateful for that. Nowadays, we lift each other up in moments of weaknesses and cheerlead each other on to our own self-confidence and positivity. Our trust has grown tenfold, as has our ability to listen and actually hear one another. Rather than fumbling with loose ends that require closure, we hold hands and walk side by side as we learn life together. I mentioned that the two of us can be a mirror image of each other at times. In her words, we are each other’s “reflection, but it’s all flipped—a 2.0 version.” She sees and understands my struggles, and I see hers. Sometimes they’re very different, and sometimes not at all. Last year, I got married. I live in Toronto now, and the toughest part of leaving New York City behind hasn’t been losing the city, but not being able to see Mom on a daily basis. After my wedding, she felt a new sense of security that she could finally pass the baton, and I had another guardian angel in my husband.

With COVID-19, I haven’t seen her since last year, and it kind of feels like a vital organ is missing. My friends and husband are an incredible support system, but there’s nothing that feels better than just sitting next to her, having her play with my hair as we sip lattes together, our unspoken collage of shared experiences laid out around us.