Everyday Hero...

Erma Bombeck saved my life.

For those of you who don’t know who she is, let me share. She was just an average, everyday wife and mother who wrote about her simply “complicated” life. Being a single mother I always felt that I wasn’t good enough. I had one kid that loved to eat gum of the ground, another who was forever flushing things down the toilet, and another who was fixated on girls at time when others his age considered them “gross”, and one that just wanted to stay with my mother. I felt like I was the most screwed up mother on the planet, that my kids were doomed for a life of therapy and meds (although my motto is “I am more then positive your therapist will love this story”). I needed a beacon of hope.

One day in a secondhand bookstore I came across Erma’s book entitled “If life is a bowl of Cherries…what am I doing in the pits?” I picked it up thinking it might be a fun read. So sitting on the train on the way home I started reading. I laughed and laughed, and laughed some more, to the dismay of those around me. Apparently when you’re the only one who is privy to a joke, it is annoying to others, but that did not stop me from laughing so hard that tears came to my eyes. This particular day I was reading about her learning to play tennis because she wanted to be “ cool and hip” like other moms, but she ended up entangling herself in the net and falling flat on her back in front of the whole club, to her children’s shock and dismay. Of course she was embarrassed but she found the humour in it and took it in stride. Her everyday adventures were so completely unimportant, but that is exactly why they were so interesting .

Erma gave me hope, where all other parenting books made me want to hand my children over to children’s services before I completely ruined their lives. In the pages of her books I learned that what I was going through was normal, and that I would live through it. I learned that no matter how crazy things seem they could be worse. She assured me that as a mother, that I was not a failure and that I didn’t have to be what everyone else expected. In the end I would be okay, and the kids would be okay, and she was right. Her love and laughter came through in her writing.

One amazing and inspiring thing I want to you to know about her, is not just her writing, but also her personal story. Erma suffered from a hereditary kidney disease, and battled cancer in her later years, yet through it all she was a wife, mother and a journalist. She wrote four thousand syndicated columns and wrote 15 best selling books. She was part of the feminist movement of the 60’s and she inspired women all over the world, until 1996 when she passed away from her ongoing battle with cancer.

Erma Bombeck’s legacy lives on and through the lives of women like myself. Women who needed to hear that their unconventional parenting skills were not bad, only different. Women who needed to laugh at things rather then blow a gasket over something that they had no control over. And more importantly to enjoy being a parent, because in a blink of an eye, they go from diapers to college. She inspired me, and pushed me forth, thus saving my life.

I think its only fitting that I leave you with a quote:

~It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding. ~Erma Bombeck

Thank You Erma wherever you are~~xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo