"LITTLE BESSIE"

Like Mother, Like Son

When I was maybe eight or nine years old, I was given the nickname "Little Bessie" after my mother, because it was widely acknowledged amongst our extended family that I looked and acted so much like her. Since few little boys want to be that directly associated with their mothers, I hated the name, which meant it stuck for quite some time. I clearly remember the annoyance I felt at being addressed as "Little Bessie", which seemed like an insult to my burgeoning sense of masculinity. By comparison, a few times I'd also been referred to as "Little Floyd" after my father, which I also never cared for, but that one never really stuck. It never felt as genuine, as a compliment or an insult, and instead always seemed obligatory.

Regardless, it wasn't as demoralizing as "Little Bessie" which I had no retort for, because it was so true in every way possible. If you knew my mother, and you watched me for five minutes at any point while growing up, you knew I was her son without question. I looked like her, and acted - and reacted - like her. I smiled and laughed like her. I had her temper. I had her disposition. I fostered the same types of relationships.

Little Bessie was indeed a chip off the block, which became something of a chip on my shoulder.


In reaction, I tried to not act like her, which went about as well as you can imagine. It didn't matter if it was genetics or environment, the inevitability of my situation was that I was programmed and hard-wired with elements that nothing was going to get rid of. The best I could hope to do was learn to live with them, and possibly improve upon them. Lofty goals at nine, but I had them.

Lest you think I had a problematic relationship with my mother, I can assure you I didn't, or at least it was no more problematic than most others. (Well, maybe a little bit more.) As perturbed as I was at being Little Bessie, I was also zealously protective of my mother's good name. If anyone brought up her bad qualities, I was quick to defend her, and point out a few of my antagonists' own faults. When the inevitable mentions of Bessie the Cow were made, I would grow defensive. I may not have wanted to be Little Bessie, but I still tried my best to defend the title.

For her part, Bessie tolerated the zaniness of raising a creative child, indulging in far more Superman-related comic-books, toys, clothes, cartoons, movies and chatter than could ever be expected. I'm sure being "Marcel's Mother" was just as challenging a title for her.

Over time, I didn't spend as much time with the relatives who had dubbed me with my nickname, and it lost a good bit of its immediate power over me. But I had a slow-dawning realization, one that still grows clearer and clearer by the day. It's something that has never been a secret, yet I still needed to own up to it in full in order to come to terms with it:

I am Little Bessie.

Over the years I've become more like her than I ever thought could be possible. I have so many of her quirks and foibles and strengths they couldn't begin to be listed. But instead of running from them, I've learned to embellish them, and hopefully do even more with them than she did. And that was a lot.

My mother was always the favorite aunt to her nieces and nephews, and most people in the world who know her will speak at length of her generosity of time and spirit. She rarely said "No" to a request if it was at all possible for her to do something, even if it wasn't something she wanted to do. That last trait caused problems sometimes, most laughably the time she agreed to watch a church-going friend's dog for a week, when my mother has NEVER been an animal person. But she soldiered through and honored her self-imposed Christian debt, and in retrospect I love her all the more for it.

My mother is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and all too often her humanity and flaws were laid  threadbare. But through everything, she has kept certain core values, and I'm amazed at the relationships she's fostered because of her dedication to others. My mother is truly a people-person, and at the risk of over-inflating my own ego, I got that from her big time. And I'm glad.

I foster the same types of relationships as her, and have the same general disposition as her. I act like her. I look like her. I laugh like her. (All in a decidedly more masculine way, of course.)

These are all good things...just like being called Little Bessie. If I can one day be as good a parent as she was, then maybe Little Marcel will be okay with his/her nickname and regard it as a genuine compliment.

Thanks to all the mothers I know, far and wide, of both genders, natural, adopted and figurative, for your own namesakes, and for integrating your own programming and hard-wiring into my system. I appreciate your humanity.

Happy Mother's Day from Bessie's Son!