The most valuable skill I have.

My Mom was a networking master and until just recently, I didn't realize that she imparted the most valuable skill that I have.  I use it every single day.  It is the one skill that I continue to hone and grow.  And yet, much like my Mom, I keep my standards high. I didn't realize how much so until I started exploring my demons during this past year and a piece. 

My mom, in building her piano school, created a niche for being the exacting, demanding professor who made her students strive for the best.  And her students wanted to BE the best.  They wanted to love her and make her proud.  She knew how to make them want to make her proud.  She pushed them to where they needed to be pushed, but hardly ever over.  

She knew when to stop and help them get to where they needed to be.  She was an amazing teacher.  And she had a reputation for being amazing, exacting, and demanding.  With that reputation, she was able to work with only the best of the best.  

The parents of the students were equally under her spell.  I'm not saying this is a bad thing at all.  When we moved to Indiana, my Mom was having a really hard time.  She was newly divorced and had a hyperactive child who hated the fact that she was away from her friends (having just had the best year of her life, finally in public school with her friends from Girl Scouts, etc), and away from everything she knows.  I was this nerdy kid with buck teeth and braces, giant ugly glasses, and the thickest, hill billy-est, Star Trek-loving, over-permed frizzy hair.  Yeah, I didn’t make friends easily.  

My Mom, due to teaching the Suzuki method, which incorporates the parents in the learning,  (“It is integral to incorporate the parent into the child’s learning,” she would say.) taught the parents of her students how to get the best out of their children not just musically, but her students generally excelled academically and extracurricular-ly as well.  The parents embraced her into their world socially as well.  They knew what a masterful pianist she was, they loved hearing her expertise on classical music and various concert pianists around the world.  She always loved telling them about the time of her life when she was traveling the world as a concert pianist and student of music.  

Even when she was older, as her students grew up we were invited to birthdays, bat mitzvahs and graduations. When you were a teacher as long as she was you eventually start getting invited to weddings as well.  Growing up, though, we went on excursions to museums, we visited one student’s family in Mexico over the winter holidays!

  

My mom loved these families.  She became an extended member of their families as well and they only recommended the best people for my Mom.  She took me to the best allergy doctor, a parent of a student, who correctly diagnosed my asthma and allergies. The best eye doctor for glasses. That eye doctor even gave me a receptionist job when I was going through a particularly rough time after high school graduation. I didn't realize what an amazing support network she had until she was much older.  

I babysat and introduced one student and his younger brother to Star Trek.  We went to conventions together.  I was genuinely sad when they moved away.  My mom stayed in touch with them.  The father helped my Mom with computer stuff, designing programs, and he built her a very cool stool for her piano which I still have to this day! 

Occasionally, I would have sleepovers at their house, where I would "babysit" the brothers (although it was more of an unsupervised playdate), my Mom had signed me up for the Red Cross Babysitting course and now being a certified Red Cross babysitter, I could have these unsupervised playdates with both sets of parents feeling guilt-free.  I made the best babysitter ever!

In return, I learned about the music of Queen, Monty Python (we didn’t have that in KY at the time, or at least I had never heard of it), and VHS tape upon VHS tape of Star Trek: The Next Generation and later, DS9.  That family equally embraced me, allowing my nerdy side to bloom. 

My Mom created a tribe.  Those sleepovers? That gave my Mom a minute to breathe.  They gave her a brief respite from a high-strung kid.  She was suddenly thrust into a single mom situation, in a new town where she didn’t know anyone.  

I probably should have been on some sort of medication.  My Dad even told me that my teachers had talked to them about medicating me but that my Mom had been firmly against it.  She didn’t want her daughter medicated - it held a social stigma that she did not like.  My parents handled it by keeping me busy.  I took ballet class, tap class, jazz class, gymnastics, karate.  

At various times my Mom had me in a choir, taking recorder lessons (she met a recorder player), Girl Scouts, softball, line dancing classes, day camp, sleep away camp, tutors, summer camps at the local college about whatever I was interested in.  We took trips to the library constantly, and throughout story hour I would always be moving.  Moving, moving, moving.  

My teachers all said I was incredibly bright but I made careless mistakes and didn’t apply myself.  I would constantly plan things and never complete them.  When I was younger  (up until Junior High), I would forget to finish my homework or I would leave it at home.  My teachers would always say or write on my report card that if I would have just turned in my homework on time, I would have gotten full credit.

When we lived in Kentucky, my Dad took point on handling me.  He was so good with me.  He would talk to me and keep my mind engaged, asking me questions.  He managed me.  He’s a pretty amazing dad.  My Mom had always been more focused on her students than everyday family life.  That’s just the way she was. It was what it was, I know that now.  I know she loved me in the way she could, but in the end, I always felt like I was never enough.  

I like to think she was proud of me in the end.  She wrote it in a card once.  She 100% adored her granddaughter.  That was the one thing I did do right.  She also loved her other grandkids, but Lily… she had a special place in my Mom’s heart.  I think she and Megan had a kindred spirit too, both of them mischievous.  She would have gotten a kick out of Megan’s later antics.  

The whole point here was that my mom had an amazing network.  She attracted the best people around her.  And she turned them into friends.  She always told me that it was important to have good friends.  This was hilarious because she got upset when I wanted to spend more time with my friends that I had made for myself rather than the ones she thought I should be hanging out with.  Through this network, she was able to help other people.  From plastic surgeons to dentists, to piano tuners, artists around the world.  My Mom taught me how to build a tribe.  If you translate that to business, it's networking. 

My Mom taught me the most valuable skills that I have.  They may not have been the skills that she wanted to impart, but they are the skills that I use every day in my job and I like to think that she would be proud of my growing successes.

I am grateful for these thoughts.  I was beginning to feel like I was losing her. It has brought her back to me and wrapped me back up in one of her hugs. It actually makes me smile.