As a child, I told everyone whom I met that I wanted to be a writer. I meant, of course, that I wanted writing for a job. I’ve not gotten that; not yet, anyway. I do write in my job — letters, motions, e-mails, even briefs. I’ve had various things published — articles in a newspaper, poems in a magazine, my self-published blog. I write, but I am not a writer in the way that I envisioned all those decades ago.
However, thankfully for my ego, I also avowed that I would be a mother. And that I am. I realized, once, and with a gut-wrenching suddenness, that I had given birth to a musician. I saw that glazed stare as he seemed to be listening but kept playing; watched him matriculate through high school with a guitar mixed among the covers of his never-made bed; helped him haul three guitars and an amp into that first dorm room in 2009.
But slowly, over time, that musician also became a writer: BA in Creative Writing, acceptance to an MFA program in Writing for Stage and Screen. So while I could lament that I never became a writer in the sense that the child-formerly-known-as-Mary always meant, I will not complain because I find that it just skipped two generations: From my grandfather, John L. Corley — a lawyer and a published author — to my son, Patrick C. Corley.
And here’s my mother’s day gift from him. I caution you that some of its words are a bit crass, even adult. And some of its concepts went straight over the head of the author’s mother. And the length astonished me. That said, please, I hope you will click this link and understand the joy that this author’s mother feels.