Thread by @GailSimone

I have a little story to tell.

It’s kind of a ride. It will likely only have any importance to me, so feel free to mute the next batch of posts.

But it’s a gut twister.

1/

Okay, if you have followed me, you probably know that my childhood was pretty rough. Lots had it far worse, but maintaining an optimistic POV was often pretty difficult.

I love my family, but to say we didn’t always understand each other is a massive understatement.

2/

I was a star student, graduated early with nearly perfect grades, I worked two jobs to pay all my own expenses, I was in drama, was a basketball cheerleader, and babysat my siblings.

So, you’d think, parent’s dream, right? :)

But I was willful and liked books, and comics. 3/

No drugs, no alcohol, just a pretty good kid by most standards, but things were rough. And again, LOTS of people had it lots worse, and we’re all fine and get along and there’s no hard feelings or anything like that. I’m not trying to whine, it’s just what it was.

4/

But in particular, there wasn’t a lot of quality family time, not a lot of laughs around the house, really.

And again, I liked some nerdy things. And literature, and scary movies. So, nerd tendencies were definitely there and those were not really much appreciated. ;). 5/

And I figured, well, I’m sure it’s like this for everyone, we live in the boonies, my father is a lumberjack, it’s a mill and fishing town. I’m the oddball, not everyone else, no big deal.

But the story takes a weird twist, because my mom cut my hair. 6/

Now, I love my mom, but she can’t cut hair and it was always a horrible trauma. So I would save up and get my hair styled in town and it was very little better. TRAUMA. When you’re already the only redhead in school...YIKES. :)

7)

Then we heard that there was a new salon in the next town up the coast, about 17 miles away, and the owner was awesome, a hair whiz from California. I begged to go. And I did, and she WAS awesome. She FIXED MY LIFE with that first hairstyle. I loved her immediately.

8/

So, that changed everything, suddenly I don’t have a pumpkin globe on my head, I have this gorgeous mane and it’s just a complete game changer.

I adored her.

9/

And she’s great, she’s funny, everyone is always laughing, and she is genuinely interested in my hobbies and interests. I was thirteen, having an adult LISTEN to my nerdy interests was a big deal.

Pretty soon, she mentions she has a son who likes the same stuff.
10/

And from there begins a TWO YEAR INITIATIVE on her part to get her son and I to meet. We both politely decline. FOR TWO YEARS.

Who wants to get involved with someone half an hour away? It just sounded too weird. And who wants to be set up by their MOM? :) 11/

Anyway, he has girlfriends, I had boyfriends, it just never was going to happen.

Finally, TWO YEARS later, he asks her, “Mom, if I call this girl, will you quit bugging me about it?”

That was @rocketspouse. 12/

He calls, asks if I would like to go to the beach and then play Dungeons and Dragons. I REALLY wanted to play, I had only heard about it. So I said yes. And that was our first date.

He and his friends were a riot, we had a blast. 13/

But the best thing was, the entire family is laughing and telling jokes and picking on each other in a playful, funny way. That was a very new thing. And my hairdresser turned out to be an AMAZING cook. 15/

She made a beautiful bbq dinner for just the two of us on the same lakeside deck where I am typing this right now.

And she told jokes and danced for our entertainment (and @rocketspouse’s eternal embarrassment). I had never experienced anything like it. 16/

Flashing forward, I fell in love with that guy and married him a little, and we spend every day together, and we are a team and it’s lovely.

And my hairdresser became my second mom, no question, she loved me as her daughter and that was it. 17/

And she was a huge influence, she made it obvious it was okay to tell jokes and try to see the humor even in darker times.

When I left university, I decided to become a hairdresser, because of her. And I first ended up in her salon, she taught me to be a great hairdresser. 18/

And we worked together every day, lots of laughs, I saw the care she had for people...she was voted First Citizen of our town a bunch of times, organized a crisis center and food drives that are still going today.

Eventually I got my own salon. I missed the laughs though! 19/

The ONE THING that was kind of sad for me...when I started writing, which was my dream gig, she didn’t really get it. She was happy for me, she was proud, but she didn’t really understand exactly what I did, and she never asked to read any of my stuff. 20/

I don’t know that she had EVER read a comic, and I thought she thought it was some sort of interim thing I was doing, while waiting to be Stephen King or something. She just didn’t get it. I tried to explain what it was like with the lines at cons...it just baffled her. 21/

And she had some funny ideas about what writers do.

I called to tell her I had the number one book on the New York Times bestseller list.

She said, “Do they send you a limo?”

22/

I told her I was going to give a speech at the White House, she asked if that meant I would get a raise.

She grew up poor, and she meant no harm, but it still made me a little sad. It felt like she didn’t understand this was my dream.

Okay, skip ahead.

23/

Years later, just a couple years ago, she got sick, the kind of sick you don’t get better from. She had beaten the big illnesses already, it wasn’t to be this time. And she didn’t want hospice, so I put a lot of work aside to be her caregiver.

Because Mom. 24/

It was long and difficult and draining. I don’t want to go through all of it, but any of you who have taken care of a parent in their last year know what I’m talking about. Again, others have had it worse but it was very sad to see this vibrant, funny light start to fade. 25/

It was hard on @rocketspouse, it was hard on his family. I was the one there all day every day. It’s still on my mind a lot.

And then she passed, and we heard from endless people she had helped, literally fed and clothed, at their lowest times. 26/

And again, this is going to sound selfish because she did so much for me, and my life would be SO much less without her, but I was sad that she never really cared about this career that meant so much to me.

Selfish, yep. But families don’t always make sense. 27/

Or so I thought.

28/

Okay, here’s the punchline. She had become a bit of a hoarder, she didn’t want to throw things away. So there are rooms of this big house that are still being emptied.

Recently, we were clearing out a room that had been sort of random stuff, paperwork, but also treasures.

29/

Things like family photo albums, and my father-in-law’s Marine Corps gear.

Important stuff, right?

And we find a package. A box, really.

30/

And we pull it out, not thinking about it, really, out to the dining room table, where the beautiful view of that lake is, that same deck where she cooked us a dinner and told jokes. The place I’m typing from.

31/

And I open the box.

32/

And it’s a stack of all the first issues of my comics.

My first Birds of Prey. First Deadpool. First Simpsons. First Killer Princesses. On and on.

She had all my first issues and never told me. 33/

She would not have cared for any ‘collector’s value,’ that would not have meant anything to her. She bought them because I wrote them.

She made a treasure box of her daughter’s comics like they were gold coins.

34/

She had put each one in a zippered bag, like a freezer bag. I’m assuming she heard they were supposed to be bagged somewhere.

That stack of comics in ridiculous zippered bags took my breath away.

35/

When I could think, I realized that she had almost zero knowledge of comics, but she had put together the two things she DID know to make this box...that #1s are meaningful and that they should be in bags.

Where she got them, that is a mystery.

36/

She would not have been able to get most of them in our little town. She either ordered them, or had someone go buy them.

I got comps of those books, she knew that, I could have given them to her. But for whatever reason, she wanted to get them herself.

38/

I will probably never know, I don’t really NEED to know, how she did it, it was important to her, that’s enough.

And that’s how comics helped me get a last hug from my adopted mom.

Have a great day, everyone. Tell the people you love that you love them, okay?

End/

Ps. Thank you, Mom.