Moments - Part I - Chapter 4: Mother's Day

It wasn’t till later that year, towards the end, in May that I learned about Jack’s mom. I don’t know if I ever wondered about his mom and I’m certain I never asked. It’s strange how self involved kids can be, and I feel bad about that now. But the past is the past and that’s a good thing. 

It was the Friday before Mother’s Day and we were tasked with painting a picture of us with our moms in art class and then our teacher would display the finished products outside the art room so our moms could see them on Sunday. I’ve always been somewhat skilled in drawing and sketching and painting—not an expert, but I was usually considered the best artist in my class every year—so art class was my favorite class. Needless to say, I got started sketching out me and my mom right away. She was gonna be in front and I was gonna be behind her, like she was giving me a piggyback ride. I’d already drawn both our heads and was about to start drawing her hair when I noticed Jack wasn’t drawing. He was just sitting there, watching me draw my portrait. Unfortunately, Mrs. Cookie, our art teacher, noticed about the same time I did.

“Mr. Harlem,” she said, suddenly standing by our table, “You can’t just sit here and do nothing. You have to draw something.”

“I can’t,” he said.

“Mr. Harlem, lots of people feel that way, but you’re never going to get any better unless you try,” Mrs. Cookie told him.

“No, I mean, I don’t know what my mom looks like,” he explained casually.

“That’s not funny, Jack,” Mrs. Cookie told him.

At first, I thought he was joking too. Who doesn’t know what their mom looks like? Then, when he didn’t start laughing, I figured he was serious. And then, I thought his mom must’ve passed away and that made me sad for him.

“I’m not trying to be funny,” he told her. “My mom...isn’t...around.”

Mrs. Cookie sighed. “Okay,” she said, “in that case, you can draw a picture of you with your dad or guardian or anybody else who takes care of you. But you have to draw something.”

Jack nodded like he understood and began drawing as Mrs. Cookie walked away. I, being the blunt 9-year old that I was, said abruptly, “Why isn’t your mom around? Where’d she go?”

He stopped drawing, but didn’t look at me. He replied, as he started drawing again, “She left.”

“Well, where’d she go?!” I asked impatiently. 

He stopped drawing and looked at me. “She went to New York when I was a baby and I haven’t seen her since. So I don’t even remember what she looks like.”

“Is that who you were visiting in New York?” I asked, completely forgetting the part where he said he hadn’t seen her since he was a baby and didn’t remember what she looked like. 

“New York..?” he asked, looking confused. “When did I go to New York?”

“December, remember? You were gone for like a week just before winter break,” I refreshed his memory.

And then it dawned on him. “Oh! Yeah. No..I have other family that lives in New York,” he told me. “We went to see them.”

I shrugged. “Okay.”

We both went back to drawing our portraits in silence. 

That Sunday, my entire family went to see my drawing. Jack didn’t come with us which was kind of unusual by now. We’d asked of course, but he’d declined. I didn’t know why.

“That’s mine, Mom!” I said, excitedly pointing my picture out to my mom. 

“Wow, Al!” she said. “That’s amazing! You painted that?!”

 “Uh huh!” I nodded happily. 

I don’t know if it was actually that good or if she was just appeasing me because I was a child. But her happiness was definitely genuine. 

My dad put his hand on my shoulder as he said, “That’s really good, Alex. You’re incredibly talented. Don’t let anybody tell you different.” I nodded.

“Is Jack’s up here?” she asked.

“I think so. I think she put the whole class’ drawings up here,” I told her.

“Let’s look for it,” my dad said. And we all looked.

“There it is,” Will said, pointing to a portrait in which JACK H. was written in the bottom right corner.

“Wow,” Dad said to Mom. “Jack’s mom looks a lot like you, honey.”

“I thought that too,” Mom said, laughing.

“That’s not Jack’s mom,” I told them. “He hasn’t seen his mom since he was a baby and didn’t remember what she looked like, so Mrs. Cookie said he could draw his dad.”

My dad chuckled a little as he said, “Well, that does not look like his dad.”

“Well, she said he could also draw anybody that takes care of him,” I shrugged.

“Huh,” Mom said.

“That’s you, Nat,” my dad suddenly realized. “He drew you.”

My mom gasped as she placed her right hand on her chest in surprise. “Oh my God...That’s me.”

We never really told Jack that we saw his drawing and knew it was of my mom because we didn’t want to embarrass him and we figured that’s why he declined to go with us. But I did ask Jack if I could have his portrait when Mrs. Cookie passed them back out to us to take home and he said, “Sure.”

I took mine and his home and gave them both to my mom. To show you how much it meant to her, Jack and I have both since graduated high school and college, and Jack’s portrait still hangs on my parent’s wall. 

And I won’t even bring up the fact that, even in Jack’s 9-year old eyes, he knew my mom was a better parental figure than his own father. Because that’s too heartbreaking.

Tags: Sad, Humor, Depressing, Hope, Dark,