From the moment a person is born their parents play an important role in their lives. Not only do they help shape who we are, they demonstrate what a parent is and should be. Both my parents have played important roles in my life, exemplifying both parent and friend. However, there is something about my mother that has always amazed me. I call her “mom,” but I don’t think of her as my mom. She is someone I can always count on, not just as my mother but as my best friend.
I believe in many things: that everything happens for a reason, there is a right and wrong choice, and that even the most hated person in the world deserves a second chance. But what I most believe in, what I think about every day no matter what, is that my mother is my best friend.
The many struggles in my mother’s life have taught me important things, but one stands out above all the rest and captures this belief I hold. Several years ago my mother became very sick. She could not sleep at night, her legs would shake, her back was unbearable sometimes and she was forced to go to countless doctors looking for an answer. At first they thought it might be Restless Leg Syndrome. However, after months of testing and different drugs nothing really went away. Other illnesses were tossed around and they eventually decided it was some type of sleeping disorder. Though she is much better now, it was hard at one point. Besides the fact that she was sick and I couldn’t change it or make it better, she was different. She would have good days and bad days and some in between, but what made it harder was we couldn’t do the things we had always done. Shopping trips were canceled when she couldn’t stop shaking or had a poor night’s sleep and at one point all we did was fight. It hit me the hardest when I saw how hard it was for her to sign her name because her hand would not stay still. It was her trademark in my eyes, she had always told me how important it was to find my own cursive style and a way to write my name that was not the heartless time consuming fifth grade one. Though I struggled with the realization that she might never get better, I learned important values that will forever stay with me. I realized how much my mother meant to me as someone more than just my mother. Those awful months of fighting and years of not knowing what was wrong served a purpose that still doesn’t make sense, but has taught me the meaning of a best friend. This meaning guides my life allowing me to create friendships that will never be broken. Without this experience, this lesson so to speak, I would not understand why my mother has always been my best friend, my number-one-fan.