Whew!  I thought as I recalled the latest heated argument I had with my mom…

I was reading this book about Bethany Hamilton.  She is quite an amazing teen!  First off, she has been riding the waves ever since she was five.  By the time she turned eight, she has entered and won the Rell Sun contest.  In the surfing community, the Rell Sun contest is designed for kids under thirteen or what they refer to as the “groms”.  By thirteen, she had become an accomplished surfer and was well respected in the surfing world.  Second, this girl’s got the right attitude!  And it goes like this—I quote from her book, “Bumps, bruises, reef rash…hey, it comes with the territory.  I’ll take it all and then some…as long as I can surf.”  What an absolutely amazing passion coming from a 14 year-old (which is when she wrote this book) .

But her dream was interrupted one Halloween morning.  In her book, she described the interruption quite vividly , “That’s all it took: a split second.  I felt a lot of pressure and a couple of lightning-fast tugs.  I couldn’t make out any of the details, but I knew that the huge jaws of a fifteen-foot tiger shark covered the top of my board and my left arm.  Then I watched in shock as the water around me turned bright red.  Somehow, I stayed calm and started to paddle toward the beach.  My left arm was gone almost to the armpit, along with a huge, crescent-shaped chunk of my red-white-and-blue surfboard…”

I could almost imagine a hot air balloon bursting mid-air…and it all came tumbling down…but wait a minute!  Her story doesn’t end there.  No good story would want to end that way.

The first thing Bethany wanted to know after surgery was  “When can I surf again?”  Honestly amazing!  But in a lot of ways, she’s like any fourteen-year-olds: likes music, movies, plays pranks and loves driving her older brothers nuts!  And she has the same fears as anybody who has been attacked by a shark would.  She writes, “I put on a brave face for everyone, but I can’t pretend it didn’t get me at times…Imagine the one thing you love to do the most.  Now imagine, out of nowhere, something happens and you realize you may never be able to do it again.  How do you feel?  Sad?  Angry?  Shell-shocked?  For me, the answer was all of the above.”  While in the hospital, she told her dad once, “I want to be the best surf photographer in the world.”  That was her way of saying, “I know my surfing days are over…”  But in a lot of ways she isn’t like typical teenagers either, because by the Saturday after she had given up her surfing dreams, she made up her mind to try again.  And try she did!  She ended up winning the 2004 ESPY Award for Best Comeback Athlete, and the 2004 Teen Choice award for Most Courageous Teen.  She took first in the 2005 NSSA (National Scholastic Surfing Association) Explorer Women’s division.  Bethany continues to win surfing competitions one-armed and all!

You must be wondering by now, about how the argument with my mom could have ever crossed my mind.  I have just reached the page where Bethany relates riding in a plane with Patrick Swayze.  When asked by her companion why she wouldn’t ask Mr. Swayze’s autograph, she answered, “Cause I get tired of people asking me for my autograph…strangers approach me on the beach, in airports, in shops and restaurants.

They ask for autographs; they come up and tell me I’m an inspiration.’  I’m interrupted at dinner by people wanting to be in a photo with me.  It’s totally bizarre…Luckily; I have my home base to keep my head on straight.  I don’t get any VIP treatment in my little corner of the world and that’s how I like it!  To my friends and family I’m just Bethany…This is the real world, where people love and care about each other, warts and all.  I really hope Patrick Swayze is lucky to have his own home team who feels the same way about him.”    Wow!  Now that’s what the book really is all about--family.  I’m very sure that what helped Bethany get through was the training she got from her parents and the support of her friends.

“She has such a cool mom.” I thought.   Her mom’s motto is, “If life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”   Why couldn’t I have a mom like her?  You know moms, they always tell you what to do; check-up on you; remind you to brush your teeth and wash behind your ears even though she has reminded you everyday thus, making it impossible to forget!  It can get annoying at times. 

As I was leafing through the book, I remembered breakfasts in bed made by mom when I got sick.  And even times when I was well!  I remember that she never forgets to say, “I love you.”  Hey, my mom’s not perfect.  I don’t think any mom is.  I’m sure Bethany has a few things she can say about her mom, too.  She just chooses to see a different perspective.

In the book, Bethany meets with Dr. Paul “Kai” Swigart , a blind psychologist.  Bethany decides to give him part of the money for her prosthetics, so that Kai could have his eye operation.  But Kai declined, “Thank you, Bethany.  But I think that I am actually able to do more good being blind than I was able to being able to see.  I prefer to stay this way.”

Bethany relates that she didn’t understand at first, “Why wouldn’t he want to be able to see again?  Why would he wish to remain with this handicap?  But now I get it and I feel the same way.  I think I may be able to do more good having one arm than when I had two.  And it took Kai, a blind man, to open my eyes.”

Bethany has a surfer mom because she was born to be a surfer champ.  And I have my mom who loves (annoyingly at times!) because I was born to love.  You know what?  I don’t give my mom enough credit for raising me.  Thanks, mom.  And to all the mothers who’ve ever loved.

The writer, Charity Oh, berates herself for saying too much, and seeing the good things less, like for example MOTHERS.  Happy Mother’s Day!

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