If you were granted three wishes, what would you wish for?
Bigger bank account? A teenager’s metabolism? Knees that don’t crackle when used like mine do?
Maybe you’re more evolved than the rest of us and your mind immediately went to altruistic options like ridding the world of violence, injustice, and illness. While we are at it, let’s add to the list littering, secondhand smoke, and loud motorcycles.
What a world it could be. What a world it should be.
One day during elementary school recess, a few buddies asked me what my three wishes would be. As I took a moment to consider my answer, I missed their wry smiles. My careful thinking was interrupted by the boys letting me in on the trick to the entire game: just wish for more wishes!
That night, I remember my mom preparing dinner as I practiced my breakdancing moves. It was the 80s, and Michael Jackson mania had come to suburban Minnesota. While my mom stirred spaghetti, I spun on my back and moonwalked in socks across our kitchen’s linoleum floor. Nearby rested our golden retriever, Taffy.
The night felt calm. Warm. Joyful. Best yet, it felt normal.
At one point, I looked up at her and asked: Mom, if you were granted three wishes, what would you wish for? I was eager to replicate the cleverness that had wowed me that day at school: just wish for more wishes.
I don’t recall her words, only a loving dismissal of the question.
I again nagged her innocently for an answer, but received only a calm silence. The steam from the pot rose past her.
Undeterred, and likely annoying, I pressed her a third time: C’mon, mom. If you had three wishes, what would you wish for?
Her slow stir came to a rest. She tapped the spoon gently on the pan and placed it on the counter beside her. She took a breath. Paused. And then turned toward me and laid her hand on the top of my head.
I would wish for peace.
Peace.
And someday you’ll understand.
At the time, I didn’t know that the woman standing above me had once dreamed of writing the next great American novel. That she dropped out of college to support her husband’s dreams. That she had recently learned her faithfulness had not been returned.
Within the year, my mom would host a family meeting. Cuddled up in my bed with my big sister and Taffy, she would introduce us to a new word: divorce. Add to it all, she was mourning the recent, sudden loss of her own mother.
Only thirty-four. Alone.
My mom was someone who could have used more wishes.
But she voiced only one.
As my mom turned back toward the stove, I returned to perfecting my backspin, oblivious to all she was shouldering. Quietly, she again lifted her spoon and started stirring.
And she never stopped.
She just kept stirring, day in and day out. Waking up on cold Minnesota mornings to drive to a job she detested. Loving this latchkey kid by making meals on Sunday nights that could be warmed up and eaten throughout the week. Leaving notes in my lunchbag. Racing to games. Pinching pennies. Offering Steinbeck. Frost. Believing in Boy Wonder and in better days ahead.
She just kept stirring.
After my parents’ divorce, we moved to another part of town. Over the kitchen sink, my mom hung the poem Warning by Jenny Joseph, a rallying cry for women done with being practical. I imagine her reading it multiple times a day as a personal pep talk. Joseph offers, “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple…And learn to spit…But now we must…pay our rent…And set a good example for the children…But maybe I ought to practice a little now? So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised. When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.”
Decades later, my mom definitely still won’t spit.
But she wears purple with pride.
Her wish came true.
Thank you, Mamá.
Happy Mother’s Day.
I think I now understand.