Remembering life’s lessons and mother’s love

Remembering life’s lessons and mother’s love

Peter Hamilton

Thanksgiving was great. I needed those four days to reconstruct
myself. I barely finished.

I spent dinner on Thursday without my mom for the third year in
a row, and without my pop for the first time ever (my mom has
passed away; my pop was in Seattle). With the Hamilton household
quiet, I got to thinking. After a couple days, I came up with some
ideas that weren’t too original. But nonetheless, they seem to be
worth mentioning.

The process started simply. I found, and flipped through, my
junior high school yearbook after dinner on Thursday. I guess you
could say that I had some serious time on my hands.

I was surprised by all the K.I.T.’s (keep in touch) and
I-hope-to-see-you-over-the-summer’s signed by people I could barely
remember (and some I could not remember at all). There was one line
by someone named Leslie that read, "we may be scrubs (term for
seventh-graders at my school) this year, but next year we’ll be the
big kids!"

Lucky for us, the next year we were just that ­ the big
kids.

Unfortunately, I stopped being a kid a while ago. And I have
gone on to do something far more difficult. I have grown up and
become the adult that every junior high kid thinks they will never
become.

Right now I have all the freedom the seventh-grader inside me
wanted back in 1981. I can stay up all night, I can drive, I can go
to a bar. I can even do all three at once if I’m feeling frisky. I
am a dream come true to my former self.

If that is the case, then why do I go to bed by 11 p.m., take
the bus to school and avoid alcohol at all costs?

Maybe it’s because I spent my undergraduate years staying up as
late as possible, driving as fast as my engine would let me and
drinking as much as my body would tolerate. I did it. It got old,
just like me.

Thursday night I went to bed with the realization that I am a
full-fledged adult. I must have dreamed the kind of dreams that
adults dream because I don’t remember any.

The next day I was awakened by the kind of news you never get
used to. My good friend, Alexandra, had her mother die unexpectedly
a few days before. Even though my own mother died three years ago,
I did not know what to say to Alexandra. I wanted to help her, but
I knew there was nothing I could say that would help.

Everyone tried to console me after my mom died (and it did help
to a certain degree), but none of my friends’ words of comfort were
capable of doing what I wanted. I simply wanted to hear my mother’s
voice again.

Alexandra’s tragedy got me thinking about this enigma in which
we live. Up to that point, I had always felt that the meaning of
life was love. I mean, I knew diamonds were a girl’s best friend
and boys were made of snails and puppy dog tails, but in the back
of my mind I knew that love made the world go round.

So what happens when a major source of love in your life dies? I
looked, but that answer wasn’t in my user’s manual.

Let’s fast-forward to Saturday night. I was home when a good
friend of mine, Caryn, came over for one of those
I’m-home-for-the-holidays-so-come-on-over-and-talk talks.

Somewhere around midnight (after gossiping about who’s doing
what, and with whom) we agreed that loving people may be the
meaning of life, but that didn’t mean there was any security in it.
I guess it didn’t take a couple of geniuses to come up with that
conclusion, but at that moment it seemed deep.

It wasn’t until I gave a post-Thanksgiving prayer that night
(for Alexandra’s mother) that the pieces started falling in place
for me. Since I hadn’t done my traditional what-I-am-thankful-for
speech at dinner Thursday, I decided to thank God for all the
wonderful things in my life. One of the top things on my list
(right behind that fabulous trouncing of the USC football team God
dished up this year) was all the knowledge my mother had given
me.

I didn’t realize it until the next day, but I had come up with
an addendum to my meaning-of-life user’s manual. I had found a
partial answer to the question, how can love still make the world
go round when a major source of love dies?

My answer was that my mom had finished her duty. Her duty was to
raise, love and educate her children. She did just that ­ boy,
did she do that. And after teaching me and my sister everything she
knew, she left us to gather more knowledge.

I guess the same could be said for Alexandra’s mother.

And to expand on that, I guess the same could be said for
Buddha, Christ and Mohammed.

I guess love does make the world go round, but knowledge is the
axle grease that lets it run smoothly (ouch, that is such a
stretch).

But I have strayed somewhat. I was talking about the
seventh-grade Peter Hamilton who has grown into the adult Peter
Hamilton. It is hard to believe that I now have unlimited freedom.
I can say and do anything I want.

What do I want to do with all this freedom? Well, I don’t think
I’ll worry about the fact that I go to bed early, ride the bus or
avoid bars. Actually, those things seem to make me happy.

And I think it’s safe to say they probably make my mom happy as
well. God knows I wish I had done those things (and not all the
stupid things I did do) when she was alive.

But that doesn’t really answer the question of what I would like
to do with all this freedom. To be honest, my only aspirations are
to get married, have kids and teach my children everything I know
… oh yeah, and have my children grow up to be Bruins.

For those of you wondering what my mom taught me, here goes:

TOP 10 THINGS JANET HAMILTON TAUGHT PETER HAMILTON:

1. Treat children as though they matter. Listen to them. Don’t
talk at them.

2. Turn rocks over.

3. Winners lose, losers don’t enter the race.

4. Patience beats power every time.

5. Those who dance live forever.

6. Dogs are dumb, but they are not downright stupid, like
cats.

7. You make your own chosen reality, so choose wisely.

8. Don’t eat yellow snow.

9. Hugs cure all.

10. Be a Bruin (my mom was).

Thank you, mom. And if you see Alexandra’s mom, say hi to her
for me.

Hamilton, a graduate art student, is the editor in chief of
UCLART, a literary art journal. His latest art works are currently
on display at twoPART, 11769 Santa Monica Blvd., West L.A. He
invites you to see the display.