the mom yell
noun: the high pitched, kind of annoying, incessant yell that comes from your moms mouth from the sidelines of her watching anything her child is doing
OMG- I miss my mom today. I can’t begin to tell you THANK YOU enough for warmly embracing my taking over of this platform and using it as a virtual space to feel understood in my grief. I have spoken to many of you on the phone this week, tons of you have sent my pictures of my mom—-it’s never enough, and it will always be welcomed. So if you have a story or a memory, or words or photos, I will receive them with with JOY and gratitude.
Onto today’s post—-since I am committed to the habit of Sunday musings that you loved from my mom.
From the womb, I was a loud, vivacious, lip-synching, Broadway-loving theater kid. So of course, in my youth, my parents signed me up for all the choirs, all the workshops, and all the instruments. I played lead in several shows at the Santa Monica Playhouse, I was in the choir at our temple, University Synagogue in Brentwood, and my mom and I took in shows regularly at the Hollywood Bowl.
One of my first memories of being a show stealer was at a performance at LACE with my dad. A young kid named Dan Kwong was performing, and he said to the audience, “now if you want to throw tomatoes at me, you can!” Shocked at age 6 that anyone would do such a thing, I stood up and said “well excuse me for living!” With all the sass of a 6 going on 26-year-old little girl- hands on hips and not a tremble in my voice. The entire audience started laughing and then applauding. It was hysterical, and still is one of my dads fondest memories of me. I have NEVER been shy.
And at each and everyone of my choir performances, or soccer games, or school plays at Kenter Canyon elementary, or when I sang karaoke at a restaurant, even giving birth to my son— my mother was there with this GOD AWFUL loud, obnoxious yell that was louder than any other parent, and relentless. She gave no fucks about any thing else- she was cheering me on. It was mortifying in my adolescence, but as I write this, I am tearing up- because it was such a loud and overt expression of her pride and love for me, her daughter. She was over the top with her loyalty and support of me, until her literal, dying day.
Remember last week when I mentioned that I am so similar to her?
Well, I indeed, do the mom yell.
The same obnoxious, loud, sideline hysteria for my own son. Just last week, he was competing in a martial arts tournament, and as we were watching one of his opponents, he ran over to me, out of breath, and gasped, “MOM! Thomas’ mom is NOT yelling for him! Isn’t that weird?” I giggled and told him that not all moms are as annoying as me, and it made me feel so lucky that my son knows my yell, knows my loud abundant love for him on the sidelines and that he really notices! It indeed is the outward, no-holds-barred, messy smothering love I have for my son- that only a mother could understand. Later in rewtching match videos, I indeed, am the loud annoying WOOO WOOO WOOO GO BOY MOM!
Shortly before my mom died, we had a conversation about how appreciative I was of her as a human. I think we all get to the age where we retrospectively look back on out parents as humans and not as mom and dad- and for me, the appreciation and the gratitude and desire to know more about her before I even existed was so strong. She was SO cool.
Most of you knew my mom as a professional, wicked smart, incredibly detailed and focused art gallerist and advisor- but that was just one side of her. I hope to continue to share the tidbits and parts of her, that were the softer parts. The mother, the friend, the grandmother and the guide- and perhaps as I continue to unravel the stories from before she was my mom—- I can share those with you too.
xo.