My Mom's Story: Part III - A Little Family, A Lot of Love

I’ve always found it a bit odd when other women refer to their mothers as their “best friend”. It’s always seemed to me that a mother is not meant to be a best friend. She’s meant to be my mother, you can’t really add to that relationship. To be a mom is too unique, there’s no other relationship that we as a society so strongly value and yet abuse so much.

My mom decided to undertake this somewhat daunting relationship less than three years into her marriage. She and Sandy had been living in a small apartment in Kingston, Ontario. Mom had gone to college and studied a layout and design type of program. However, the year that she finished the program was the year the industry was completely revamped to facilitate new-fangled computer technology. This effectively made her training obsolete. In Kingston she was working at Woolco as a pharmacy assistant. My dad was in a security management position while he waited for his call-up to the RCMP. If I do the math it would have been around May 1984 when my parents would have told their family to expect the first new member on both the McKechnie and James side. My maternal grandmother was thrilled. However, when my parents brought her out to the site of their newest purchase - a confederation aged farmhouse in a hamlet called Yarker, she cried, upset that my father could consider bringing her pregnant daughter to live in such a rundown excuse for a home. She didn’t need to worry - Mom always has enthusiasm for all the projects she undertakes and she and my dad soon DIY’d that rundown farmhouse into a sweet, antiqued home.

Like many couples in their early 20’s just starting out, my parents lived paycheque to paycheque and as they have always told Cam and I, there were a lot of Kraft Dinner and hot dog suppers during this time. They had just had a hot dog supper the evening that my mother went into labour. When she suggested that they go to the hospital my dad wanted to know if it was okay if they finished watching “The A-Team” first. The trip to the hospital was further delayed when the car wouldn’t start. It was the middle of a January blizzard and here was my mom in labour with her first child waiting for her husband and the neighbours to get the car started. The delay didn’t really matter. I’ve never been one to make anything easy on my mother, including my birth. It took another 16 hours before I made my appearance mid-morning on January 9, 1985. My mother has always been ahead of the times in style and although in a very traditional sense I was named after both of my parents, the name they chose - “Alexis” was very modern and unique and a lot of people didn’t care for it. Today, I think it sits in the top ten or twenty of the most popular girls names in North America. My mom has told me that about a week after I was born my dad went back to work and after he left she remembers having an overwhelming feeling wash over her - that she was now completely responsible for this little warm sleepy body for about the next 20 years. Wow. Just writing that makes me feel overwhelmed. I must have not been too scary though because for my third birthday my mom gave me a baby brother. Cameron Allan James was born the evening of January 8, 1988. I remember sitting on my mom’s hospital bed wondering why she was naming him after a camera - he didn’t look like a camera.
It’s quite clear to me at this moment that I cannot sum up my mom’s affect on my childhood in this single post, so I may come back to it in later posts. For now, I would impart possibly the most important habit my mother raised us with which I’m sure she started from the day we were each born.

“I love you”: Mom told us she loved us every single day of our childhood, including when we were teenagers. Whether it was in the morning when we got up, when we left for school, following the debriefing of our latest misbehaviour, when comforting us or celebrating with us or at bedtime, at least once a day my mom told me she loved me.
I never had to wonder. This didn’t necessarily make punishments easier and it definitely did not prevent me from treating her poorly. However, I would never underestimate the power of these simple words repeated to me on a regular basis.

I would say that this practice gave me strength and confidence as a child. Kids might tease me and push me around, but at least I can go home to my mom who loves me the way I am. I’m a bit scared to try out for this team, but whether I make it or not my mom will celebrate with me or encourage me to try again. I’m not sure if I’ll get the highest mark on my essay this time, but Mom knows I worked hard at it and she’s just as proud of me because of that. This assurance in our relationship gave me the freedom to go make a place in the world knowing that she would be behind me all the way and that the words “I love you” would never be withheld from me, no matter if it was just an ordinary day or one of the biggest days of my life.

Back in 1988 my parents had been waiting patiently for one of the biggest days in all of our lives and it came shortly after my brother’s birth. It was the day we became an RCMP family and I think it prompted one of the most noble sacrifices any wife and mother can make.

To be continued. . .