He paused, and I was afraid he was about to add some bad news.
“Hey, Mom?”
“Yes, dear?”
“You were right.”
Time stood still. This was a moment to treasure, one to sear into my memory banks and never alter or reimagine. No, I’d write this down the minute I got off the call. “I was?”
“Yeah, you were right about everything.”
And those were almost exactly the words I’d started to text my own mother earlier.
Happy tears blurred my vision, my heart practically exploding out of my chest. I tried to listen to everything he was saying, but I could only catch snippets of “going to class” and “finding people with like interests” and “giving it a chance” and “going to office hours.”
“I’m so glad,” I said when he gave me a chance to speak. “I want you to enjoy college.”
“I will. Oh! I was thinking you should look into TikTok.”
“What?”
“TikTok, you know.”
“Son, I can’t dance.”
He sighed deeply. “There’s more to it than that.”
“I haven’t figured out Instagram yet, and now you want me to learn TikTok?”
“Oh, Mom. Never mind. Gotta go. Some of us are headed to the dollar movie.”
I said my “I love you” to a dial tone, but at least my son was happy and healthy and adjusting. I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.
I know I raised a capable woman, a kind and smart woman. I knowsheis a good mother because my grandson is perfect in every way.
That’s what Mom had said before she walked out the door.
But what kind of mother am I?A bad one, I guess.
That’s what she’d said last.
Finally, I had an answer for her: the best kind.
And just like that, I knew what I had to do.
“Hello, my fellow Mom Scouts. As you can see, I’m home again. I have some new adventures for you, but those are going to have to wait. It has recently come to my attention that I have overlooked the true original Mom Scout, the bolt from which my cloth was cut.
“I read through your survey results, and I’m going to tell you the truth: I could use a little grace. We couldalluse a little grace. I’d love to say that, from now on, I will follow conventional wisdom and not read the comments, but that’s not fair to all of you who are kind and encouraging.
“To those of you who aren’t? You might want to work on your Internet Etiquette Badge and your Compassion Badge. I’m going to give you a template, because today I’ve got to work on my Apology Badge.
“Over the course of working on these videos and the sudden fame—thanks for that, Fiona Dahl; I owe you, well, a lot—I lost my way a bit. I wanted my videos to make you smile and to maybe teach you something new.
“Unfortunately, in the course of making them, I damaged my real-world relationships. Y’all harassed Mr. Always to the point that he doesn’t want to join me. I potentially got one friend fired through no fault of her own. I dragged another friend into a situation where she wasn’t comfortable. All for some clicks and likes.
“And then there was what happened with my mother.
“Mom, I just want to say I’m sorry. You were right about Mitch. You were right about the cat coming back. You were right about everything. I’m sorry for every episode ofJeopardythat we’ve missed because I was over here being afraid.
