GROSSMONT COLLEGE – September of 1992; the very first breath I took in of the fantastic world. Ever since then, my mom has been there for me through the good, the bad and the ugly.
I was born the youngest into my family of two sisters, my dad, and my mom, so naturally I was also spoiled (and still am). Whenever my sisters would get turned down for a popsicle, they would always send me in to ask my mom for one with my cute. adorable smile and my puppy dog-eyes and of course my mom would never say no. Right on cue, my sisters would come running in and shout “Johnny got a popsicle can we have one too?”
Fast forward a couple of years when I was in grade school. My dad is a firefighter so he was at home off and on working 24-hour shifts. I was interested in becoming the next best thing in the baseball at the time, I was only about seven, and I needed someone to throw the ball with. My mom, not being of natural athletic talent, would lean to the side to avoid getting hit by the ball, chase after it, and attempt to throw the ball to me, but it would always end up becoming a very slow ground ball.
Freshman year of high school, my mom forced a very important decision on my life that would forever change how I would look at this world and how I would live my life until now. My mom signed me up for guitar lessons, and I reluctantly chose to go as I knew I had no choice. I don’t think I can ever thank my mom enough for doing that for me. Music has forever changed the way in which I have lived my life in the most positive way possible.
The first class I ever took at Grossmont was with my mom when I was 16 in Professor Derek Cannon’s history of rock class. We both got A’s in the class and to this day I try to quiz her memory of that class; she hardly remembers a thing and I remember almost everything. If I didn’t take that class with my mom I would never be taking Cannon’s jazz theory classes and would not be as interested in Jazz as I am now.
My mom is in the nursing program at Grossmont currently and we occasionally grab lunch together. My mom has transformed from the person who just takes care of me to someone I can always turn to for advice and have conversations that give me some new perspectives on life.
As I was going through some of my old stuff I found an old card I gave my mom for mother’s day when I was in elementary school. It read “I love my mom because she cooks for me and cleans my room and drives me everywhere.” Now I am writing that I love my mom because she is always someone I can turn to for hard times, she puts up with me and my shenanigans, and she is one of the strongest people that I know.
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Weber is managing editor of the GC Summit. He may be contacted at [email protected]
