Our Moms the Optimists

I always enjoy reading Tom Friedman’s columns in the New York Times, including today’s, and now I have a better sense of why I do. His mom, like my mom, was an optimist:

My mom left two indelible marks on me. The first was to never settle for the cards you’re dealt. My dad died suddenly when I was 19. My mom worked for a couple of years. But in 1975, I got a scholarship to go to graduate school in Britain and my mom surprised us all one day by announcing that she was going, too. I called it the “Jewish Mother Junior Year Abroad Program.”

My mom’s other big influence on me you can read between the lines of virtually every column — and that is a sense of optimism. She was the most uncynical person in the world. I don’t recall her ever uttering a word of cynicism. She was not naïve. She had taken her knocks. But every time life knocked her down, she got up, dusted herself off and kept on marching forward, motivated by the saying that pessimists are usually right, optimists are usually wrong, but most great changes were made by optimists.

Mom died when I was 12, but she has left an indelible set of marks on me as well. She, too, gave me my strong sense of optimism and the ability to take what life throws at me and throw it right back.

She and Dad also contributed to my very strong extraversion: strangers to me are people who haven’t become my friends. My daughter Maggie also inherited this trait: as a little girl she was always inviting other little kids she met at the grocery store home for play dates!

Mom also gave me a strong desire to right the world’s wrongs, as she herself fought for justice and peace both in this country and in India where she and Dad were missionaries, and which is why I was born there.

She and Dad both contributed to drive for continual self-improvement through both formal education and experience. I will never forget her using flash cards with me and my brother Allan to memorize Greek and Latin roots and vocabulary words. Yes, I read the dictionary beginning in middle school and I’m proud of it.

Mom gave me a great curiosity about anything and everything. She read widely and encouraged us to do so as well. She took me to museums and orchestra concerts, encouraged my love of science and science fiction,

Mom and Dad through their many stories from her own life, motivated my love for telling jokes and storytelling, which is one of the motivations for Karen and I writing our book.

Mom taught me perseverance. She suffered for many years from hypoglycemia and severe headaches, both symptoms of a meningioma which was not discovered despite frequent doctor visits. She never let her pain and suffering interfere one bit with raising three boys, helping my dad with his research and writing, teaching vacation Bible School and Sunday School, and babysitting other kids to help save the money to buy our first home, right up until her untimely death at 39 following surgery to remove her tumor.

I only wish I had a perfect memory to remember all of the hundreds of lessons she taught me by her words, and more importantly, her example. I hope that I can pass along as much to Maggie and Jack as Mom passed along to me.

Aneil