Jesus Christ once said to Honour thy Mother and thy Father; it was only when I returned to ships that I finally figured out what that really meant. I used to think that in order to honour my mom I had to be the most successful of all her friend’s children, and for years felt as if I failed her: I’ve changed careers several times, I’m not in a committed relationship with a guy and planning a surrogate pregnancy with him and our friend ‘Lisa’ who spins hemp in the woods, considers knitting an extreme sport and sells beads waddled from organic bark, and to top it all off I drive a Kia Rio… alright, the last point is moot, but at any rate the energy spent feeling a sense of failure not living up to my mother’s dreams for me is pathetic and frankly embarrassing.
The embarrassing part is that the dreams I thought my mom had for me were not the dreams she had for me at all…well maybe they were when I was a baby and she was holding me in her arms, when she didn’t know me at all or what kind of person I’d become. I think now all she wants, all any parent wants is for their children to be happy and healthy. Sounds really cliché doesn’t it? And what does it mean? To be healthy and happy? Ironically it sounds like a shallow and distant order. I’ll say that waking up every morning and taking the vitamins my mom suggested is a good start. To put forth my best effort when I am entertaining on stage, and listening to guests when they are telling me something about their lives. To be the best in my job than I can possibly be and to treat every single guest how I would expect someone in my position to treat my mom: like royalty... and to make her laugh. I love my mom's laugh.
Today, as I am stuck on board all day while everyone is out in Puerto Vallarta sipping on their light beer and fishbowl drinks, getting ready to march back to the ship with their god awful balloon hats, I couldn’t resist calling my mother just to tell her I love and miss her.
People who are working in the shipboard cruise industry go months and months without seeing their parents. Married couples on board leaving their kids with their parents while they come and attempt to create a better life for their kids. It is quite a quagmire isn’t it? Creating a better life for their children by working away for months at a time and yet what kind of life is it growing up months and months without your parents. Through the eyes of a parent, perspective is very different than through the eyes of a child. How will those children honour the parents who “left them behind” with their grandparents? Will they understand that that they were never left behind because mom and dad always came back? Will they honour their parents when they get older by appreciating the sacrifices that their parents had made to give them an education, a home: a better life?
I will finish this blog with a random memory of my mom. Every September a few days before school she would be sitting down at the dining room table sorting out me and my two sisters school supplies and writing our names with a blue sharpie six times on every single item. Each Pencil (just once on them), ruler, each piece in my tin geometry set: I love you mom.
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