In December of 1975 my mama was sixteen years old. I remember when I was sixteen years old. I got my drivers license. I had a 1986 black and silver Chevy Blazer with a two fifteen inch subwoofers and an amplified sound system so loud that I actually got a ticket for disturbing the peace. So much for a “Happy Birthday.” I also had a mullet. Obviously I don’t remember my mother’s sixteenth birthday, but I have the pictures. I got a drivers license, a ticket and a bad haircut (freedom, accountability, frivolity), my mom got a baby.
Technically I was an early birthday present, born nine days before she would turn seventeen. If you have a sixteen year old in your life, look at them now and picture them with a baby. She was just a baby herself, and now she was a mama too. In 1975 there was no Teen Mom television show and no high school day care, so getting a baby meant she wasn’t getting a diploma. At least not for several more years. In 1975 having a baby at sixteen meant you were going from being a student to a housewife. While your friends were hanging out at The Hut or going to the Moon-Glo Drive In, you were changing dirty diapers and bandages on your slowly healing Caesarian incision. If you became a mama at sixteen in 1975 you were going to miss out on a lot of things, but to look in her eyes, and listen to her voice, you’d never know it.
In June of 1995 I became a daddy. I was nineteen years old. It was hard, and required a lot of sacrifices, but not quite like being sixteen. At nineteen I was an adult, a high school graduate, working full time, and owned a home. As a sixteen year old girl she had none of those things available to her at that time. What she had was round the clock feedings, diapers, never ending laundry, and a teething baby. And she loved it. I don’t mean she learned to love it, or she made the best of it, she truly, genuinely loved. It. I’m not so naive as to think that it was always wonderful. She’s human and she had to have her moments, but I don’t remember them. Obviously they weren’t that often and they weren’t that bad because I can’t recall a single one of them.
What I do recall is that in 43 years I have never known one day when I did not know that I was dearly loved. I have never felt a moment where I was unwanted. Under her roof I never went hungry, without clothes, without my necessities, without most of what I wanted. She made sure that I always had what I needed. At sixteen she probably thought what I needed most was food, clothes, and toys, and I certainly needed those things, but they aren’t what I needed most. They were just manifestations of what I needed. What I needed was unconditional love, compassion, forgiveness, time, attention, support, and I always got it. I got it the day I was born and I still get it at 43.
Mozart was born to be a composer, and he started when he was just a child. Martha Britton was born to be a mama, and she too started when she was just a child. And like Mozart, she made motherhood into an art form. She took the simplest ingredients and elements, a tiny apartment, scraps of material, a few ingredients, a little money, and by mixing them with a lot of love and a little maternal magic, she created art. She created my childhood, which, as my writing illustrates, was overflowing with wonderful memories and experiences, and she created my heart. If I have ever loved it was because of how greatly I was loved. If I have ever served it was because I was raised by a servant. If I have ever shown compassion it was because my mama wore it like a fragrance. If I have ever been a friend to the friendless it is because my mama is a friend to all.
Today is her 60th birthday. She isn’t a baby anymore, and neither am I, but she’s still a mama. Occasionally people will tell me that I sound just like, or act just like my mama, so help me God, I hope I do.
