My mom is probably the biggest influence on my life, ever. From birth and even before, who she is and how she taught me to behave has shaped me in ways obvious and not. As this year of moving around the country (four times since last March 31!) has showed me, one of the most important attributes she showed me was … the act of playing hurt.

For a dear friend of mine, Kathleen Schmatz, playing hurt meant getting up and going to work with a smile even if you overindulged in alcohol the night before. After she taught me this definition, I used it many times. For my mom, as encapsulated in this post, playing hurt meant something much more profound. She showed up for us, for my sister and myself, even at great personal cost.

My parents’ divorce in 1983 was a profound change for all four of us in that nuclear family. My father moved out, and married his current wife later that same year. My mom moved us out of our big house with the new pool we just built and into an apartment complex relatively nearby.

We continued on as before, with perhaps more personal responsibility. The year after that, for fifth grade, I transferred to a ‘regular’ school from Montessori, to help with the transition to middle school. I rode my bike — by myself — home every day. When I think about those Houston intersections (no streets smaller than four lanes for Houston, no sirree bob!) that I navigated with pride and freedom, I think about how my mom both:

• trusted me to bike home and
• took me to school every day, bike rack strapped laboriously onto the Honda Civic, so I could enjoy that freedom.

And so, when I graduated from fifth grade, my one request for a graduation party was to have my dad, my mom, and my sister go to my very favorite restaurant in the world (wait for it … ): Fuddruckers.

And so, my mom, defining grace under pressure and playing hurt, is pictured smiling gamely in this photo, taken by my dad, at Fuddrucker’s celebrating my fifth grade graduation. And while I know as an adult the enormous sacrifice that must have been for my mom at that time, I also cherish it as one of my happiest childhood memories. Playing hurt. Getting along. Sacrificing for love. Holding on to the hope that tomorrow — not next year, but tomorrow — is going to be better. It’s one of the best lessons my mom has taught me, and one I cherish every day.