I ripped a yellowed sports page of off the box, and there it was. The gift I had been talking about for months: a Lego kingdom. We’re talking about bridges, castles, and all kinds of cool medieval shit. In fact, it was two sets that together would create a fantasy world beyond my imagination. The pictures on the box were incredible, so life like, I could already hear the blood curdling cries for mercy as my knights defended their impenetrable Lego fortress. The half dozen sale tags scribbled out with black magic marker, the duct tape securing two of the corners, and the shrink-wrap that held it all together didn’t matter. This was the best present I ever got. I sat in disbelief. Finally, mom had pulled it off.
Three hours later, tears streaming down my face, I knew I was the dumbest seven year old on the planet. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t get the pieces to fit together, and the box clearly stated: for children three and up.
That’s when my mom came stumbling through the door. She was missing a shoe. Her favorite skirt, the one I’d given to her for mother’s day, had a fresh tear up one side. After a minute of clinging to the wall, she turned and saw me. She tried to straighten herself. Her lips trembled and moved, forming words that never left her mouth.
I was used to her revolving door of boyfriends. I understood that Mac & Cheese was a holiday meal and uncooked Top Ramen was the daily special. And I knew I had to forge her signature on field trip permission forms. But for a moment that day, I had mistakenly thought she was actually going to be a mom.
She hid behind her tangled hair as she made her way towards me at the card table. Silently, she tried to dry my tears with the sleeve of her blouse. And then something happened; she came to my rescue—with her lighter.
As it turned out, the set wasn’t exactly Lego; it was a couple of knock off brands that weren’t compatible. My mom spent the next four hours, hand trembling as she wielded her lighter like an impromptu blowtorch melting the pieces together one by one. She kept asking, “Are you sure you want this piece here?” Biting my lip, all I could do was nod. After awhile the blues and reds began to mix. My birthday present was now a deformed, purple mound of plastic.
My life has often felt like that: melted, swirled, and never quite turning out the way it’s supposed to. But my seventh birthday is one of those stories me and my brother share once a year when we gather at her grave, raise our glasses with love, and declare a simple toast, “Momma tried.”
