Fraggle Rock
So for those who are not MCLAers, the mailroom here at school puts little cards in your mailbox when you get a package, and you can nearly always distinguish one of these cards with just a glance at the contents of your mailbox. The other day Iwas checking my mail after all the mailroom personal had gone left and saw I had recieved a card. I left it in the box, because I cannot get the package unless the mailroom is open to business. I was figuring it was merely a journal article the library told me I would be receiving in the mail that I had not yet recieved, and was past the time at which it would prove to be any use to me. So I kind of forgot about it until today, when I had to run an errand to the mailroom for work.
I drop off the letter that was the purpose of my errand and then went to my mailbox to retrieve my mail. I had a letter from Financial aide, reminding me of deadlines and such, and the little package card. I went to turn in the package card, thinking it was only a photocopied article i was going to throw away as soon as I got it.
It was not, however. It was an actual package, addressed by my father. pleasantly surprised, I headed back towards the libary, where I work in an office in the basement, opening the package as I walked. I assumed that my father had sent along something I had forgotten from home, or a prescription of some sort. When I opened the package, there were two boxes that indeed looked medical,but there was also a card.
I had to go home sometime last week, and usually whenever i go home, my parents give me gas money. I don't ask for money from them to pay for my car insurance, credit card bills, for food, and certainly not anything frivolous, so getting the gas money always feels like a treat since I am fairly financially independent. Last time, my mother had requested I bring her coffee at work before I headed back to school, and she would also give me gas money. Well, I brought her her coffee and we forgot about the money. She felt bad about it, so she told me she would give it to me when she came up to see my sonnet performance that weekend.
So I did my sonnet performance, and my mom and sister came. I don't perform hardly ever, and I'm certainly not much of one for being on-stage. I'm more of a back-stage, stage-hand kind of gal. Seeing my mom and sister in the audience made it much less nerve-racking for some reason. Maybe just because they were people who loved me. But so afterwards, my mom tells me I did good, even though I don;t think she liked it, and told me that since it was Shakespeare's birthday, she had got me a present.
Now, I don't know if everyone watched Fraggle Rock as a kid, but I did. I loved it. It is one of those things from childhood that you barely remember other than remembering how much a part of your life it was. So, my mom had got for me the entire first season of fraggle rock on DVD. Pretty sweet, you have to agree. It is a very cool little box set that is a box that folds out into a book of dvds and has a little "memo" pad which has all the scribbled thought process that led to the Fraggles creation. So, she and molly headed back home, and yet again forgot to give me gas money, which of course, I didnt mind considering she had brought me an undoubtedly expensive DVD set.
Back to today, when i open the card in my package. The card depicts a woman grocery shopping and a man in a trenchcoat, flashing her. The woman says "Why, thank you young man! i almost forgot I needed baby carrots!"
Inside the card, my mom gave me gasmoney as well as wrote about why she got me the Fraggle movie set.
When i was little, McDonalds had Fraggle figures in their happy meals, and naturally, I wanted them all. So we set out to collect all the Fraggle figures. And we nearly did! In the end, we were missing only one of the figures. Unfortunately, the only one we were missing was my favorite Fraggle, Red. My mother writes that this was "back when I still beleived that if I were a good enough mom, you kids would have perfect lives with no disappointments or pain ever. So we drove to every McDonalds in Western Mass looking for the fraggle we were missing (I think it was Red) But we never did find her...I wanted to get you the Fraggles to let you know how much I love you and how despite my lack of perfection, I want the best for you always and i am hugely proud of you. (I don't know why I am writing upside down)" because she had, in fact, somehow managed to end up writing upside down when trying to flow from the left side of the card to the right in one , uninterupted stream.
And as i read this card, walking back across campus, I started to cry. Only a little, but enough to make me feel suddenly very vulnerable and guarded. My relationship with my mother has been a complicated one, with certain points where not only did I not understand her, i wanted nothing to do with her. And even though i have always fiercely loved my mother, we have not always liked each other. And I was crying because I have grown to feel incredibly close to my mother in recent years, and because my mother is a much more amazing person than she realizes or gives herself credit for, and because my mother loves me more than she loves herself. My mother allowed herself to become miserable while trying so hard to make sure that her children were not. Something so simple as a McDonalds toy, and I do remember the hunt for the fraggle, and it was Red I never got, and it was disappointing. But I also remember how hard my mom tried to get it for me. Even as young as I was (pre-elementary school), I remember realizing how hard my mom had tried. And it just kills me. Knowing someone loves you that much, and that she remembers it now even, and remembers even which fraggle was my favorite, it just kills me. I really hope I am as good a mother as she is. I really do.
Sorry to get all sappy and sentimental.