A warm summer day, playing in the backyard, swinging on the swing set, being pushed by a figure whose smell you’ve learned to know through your years of growing up; it’s your mother. The one figure who singlehandedly gave birth to you, cared for you, and overall was able to watch you grow into a magnificent human being.

My mom can be classified as any basic mom, if you look from the outside; taking care of her 2 daughters and being there for the both of us, making sure we were fed and also that we were strong and capable, just like she is. She’s a big inspiration to me, thus why I’ve decided to put her in the spotlight for this story.

After my mom was born, she moved around a lot, and I mean a lot. She was born in Casper, Wyoming, a place no one thinks of in Wyoming, unless you’ve personally been there. She lived there till she was 2. After that, she moved to Evansville, Wyoming, where she lived till, she was around 7. She then moved to Wallingford, Vermont for a year before moving back to Casper until she was 15.

During her time in Casper, she lived with her multiple siblings, which isn’t always easy. She had three biological siblings, two sisters and one brother to be exact, one half-brother, one stepbrother, and one stepsister. With this big family, it was hard to pay attention to oneself, given there needs to be attention given to 5 other people all collectively at the same time. Her and her biological brother, Dale, skied a lot, given that Wyoming is cold almost a hundred percent of the time, with the amount of wind there not helping either. She would camp regularly with her siblings, especially Casper Mountain. She likes to tell me a lot that her time in Casper was amazing, mostly for the part where she knew North from South, just by using the mountains, given the mountains were always South.

She then moved to Evanston, Wyoming and lived there till she was 18. While she lived there with her family, she was always in the mountains, spending even more time camping there than she did back in Casper. She was close to many ski areas, like Park City and Jackson Hole, meaning she wouldn’t have to ski just in her backyard or on a hill near her house. The time she spent in the mountains, specifically the Uinta mountains, was used by riding mountain bikes on trails and rivers.

Afterwards, she moved back to Casper, again, for about a year. At that time, she was attending Casper College, living in the dorms. She was an RA as a freshman, which she states herself was a weird phenomenon. She was there to get her degree in Fine Arts, as she was a dance teacher. She was constantly in musicals and theatre productions.

She then moved to Salt Lake City, Utah for a year, where she worked locating the natural gas pipeline and used water to detect the pipeline’s current practically the whole time she was there. She would work for 7 days a week, 16 hours a day testing all the pipes. For the most part, she would work with herself, occasionally working with another person the other times. She states that she would have to deal with a lot of things by herself, such as nature and animals, and also climbing fences. She didn’t work just in Salt Lake, but also Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and Idaho. She lived with her brother, Dale, while she was there in an apartment, stating that she loved the apartment, but wasn’t in there often, given she would work in other states.

When she moved to Fort Collins, Colorado for 2 years, she worked at a fertilizer plant during the day and taught dance during the night. Then she realized that she could be in technology while still having multiple jobs, thus why she quit her day job and started working for a software company, which she also quit when she moved. That job made billing software for architects and lawyers. It wasn’t a big company, but she loved it, nonetheless. She did end up going to Franklin University for her Computer Science degree before getting into the tech business.

She finally landed in a spot she loved the most: Columbus, Ohio, where she currently lives. She taught dance during the night for 2 years, while continuously working at LCI Communications, another software company, which was a phone company that ran high speed under the ocean cables for phones and internet, where she worked for 2 years. After quitting that job, she found her job at JP Morgan and Chase and worked there for about 7 years. She then quit her job and worked for a marketing firm called Resource Interactive, where my dad had worked as well. While having this job, she did stuff for LL Bean, Victoria’s Secret, HP, and Home Depot, a very busy woman I would like to say. She then started working for a different software company, AWH, which made word processing software and games.

In 2012, she went back to JP Morgan and Chase, mostly so that she could travel less and have maternity leave for her next kid, my sister. Since the day she came back, she hasn’t left, loving every moment of her job there, getting promoted highly and just overall loving the things that she does. Currently, she works in the data space, making data available for AI and analytics for business decision making. She has multiple teams that she runs, which you can say is a big achievement, considering she is the boss of around a hundred plus people. She really is an incredible woman.

In May of 2009, my mother became pregnant with me, who would end up being born 9 months later right before the 21st of February. She then had my sister, Natalia, almost 3 years later, with her being born on January 24th.

She has always loved me and my sister, no matter how cranky we would get, no matter how much we fused, she would love us repeatedly. I’m sure if you asked her, she would go through the entire process of having us and raising us 10,000 times over, with nothing in return. To even say she just loves us is a complete understatement.

This might just be some basic mother, no different than the rest of the stories you’ve received, but this “basic” mother makes up someone’s entire life: my own. My mother has been there, through thick and thin, through rain or shine, being there not only for her family, but for herself and others around her. She alone is the most amazing person on this planet. And that may sound cliche or sound like what, almost, everyone would say about their own mother, but there’s a reason why everyone says it. A mother shapes who you are, shows you who you can be, tells you there is no insane idea when it comes to your future, and so much more.

My mother has been the most supportive person in my life, from coming to my violin lessons as a child, no matter how much I hated them, to my choir concerts when I would have solos, to even just my skating lessons, where there would be nothing special happening and she could be sitting at home or in the car, doing her own thing, but she showed up, for me. And not just for me, for my sister, for her friends, and for her coworkers. She shows up for everyone. The support you can feel from her is astronomical.

To finally close this biography off, I just want to say one thing. Say thank you to your mother, even if they aren’t a part of your life, however that may be. Say thank you for the things you might not have been able to say thank you for, for the gifts that went un-thanked, for the things your mother may have done for you, and for the dinners your mother made. Even if you think it’s too late to say thank you, it never is. Thank you, reader.

*****

Izzy Cristina is a high school writer focused on fiction and personal essays. Her nonfiction explores identity and the people who shape her, while her fiction dives into mysteries, horror, heartbreak, and everything in between. She’s passionate about telling stories that make adifference, ones that challenge how readers think while still entertaining them. One of her personal essays has been submitted to Olentangy Liberty High School’s literary magazine.

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