When I think about my Mom on Mother’s Day, I remember all the ridiculous, awful and frightening situations I’ve put her through in my 22 years on Earth. I wonder how she’s survived without having a heart attack thanks to giving birth to the most accident-prone daughter in the entire world. 

When I was about six or so, my older sister Ally and a few neighbourhood friends were heading to the corner store to buy some candy when we were still in Red Lake, Ont. As usual we stopped to pet a black lab named Alf that was always chained to his dog house down the street. What we didn’t know is that poor Alf had had enough of that chain. Everyone took their turn to pet him. As I approached, the dog lunged at my face and took a chunk about a quarter inch thick out of my cheek. My sister ran to a neighbour, who carried me home to my Mom, who was home alone while my Dad was away at the mine. I remember sitting in the kitchen trying to put my finger in the hole that used to be part of my face (gross, I know, but I was six and in shock) as Mom anxiously organized a trip to the hospital and a place for Ally to stay, all the while batting my hand away from the wound.

My second memory is the rabies shots that followed. A dark hospital room, being held down by a team of doctors as they administered the painful shots. My Mom remembers it too – she could hear me screaming from the waiting room. All that was erased when the owners of the dog brought me a basket of candy later that week. It’s funny how six-year-old minds work. That’s my final memory of the experience. 

Fast forward to high school. My Mom got tired of driving me around, so she let me take her car – a Toyota Echo which I have since inherited.

One evening I was driving to Cranbrook, B.C., a half an hour from Kimberley to see my sister. I passed a driver going 60 km/h in a 100 km/h zone, and upon pulling into my lane, ran over a deer that someone had hit and left in the middle of the road. 

The car was drivable, but the underside was full of deer bits. Mom wasn’t even mad. 

The Echo got fixed, and off I went to see my Dad out in Meadowbrook, which is outside of Kimberley. I was singing along to a song on my iPod, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small deer dart out in front of the car. I slammed on the brakes, but wasn’t able to stop in time, and the little deer bounced its hind quarter off the hood. I remember screaming, “COME ON!” As the little deer and the Echo collided, with my previous deer incident still in my mind. 

The deer left a little deer-bum shaped dent in the hood. After paying for the last damage, it was decided it was just cosmetic. Mom jokingly said, “Next time you crash my car, can you make sure you take out the hood so I can get a new one?”

Little did she know, barely a year later, I would oblige her request. 

In between my first and second years of college, I was working at a pub outside of town. I was fiddling with my iPod (typical, rookie driver mistake) when SMASH! Into the back of a car I went. That car then leapt forward and hit a truck. The Echo’s front end was almost destroyed. I called my Mom, thinking she would be mad at me, but she wasn’t; she walked down the hill, and when she got there took charge of the situation I was too frazzled to handle. At the police station we giggled and Mom told me not to worry – this is what insurance was for. 

She drove around in a hideous Crown Victoria rental car for over a month while her car was fixed to its former glory. The racing stripes that she swears makes it go faster were repaired even though they were discontinued. 

While I celebrate my Mom, and her unrelenting patience as she dealt with my constant accidents and screw-ups, I wonder if there shouldn’t be a day to celebrate the poor unsuspecting vehicles us teenage drivers smash up as we learn to drive. 

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. 

DISCLAIMER: The Last Word is an opinion column, it is meant to provoke thought and debate. As such, any opinions written here are the writer’s own and do not reflect the viewpoint of any other Fitzhugh staff member or the directors of the Jasper Media Group Inc.