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My mother gave me my heart, lungs, arms, legs, and genes. But whatever natural physical abilities I possess were as randomly awarded as the winning numbers on a roulette wheel. Without an organized will and discipline, physical attributes are meaningless. Without the sure-handed parenting I received from Linda Mooneyham Armstrong, they would have amounted to nothing. They'd have been just a collection of scattered characteristics, topped off by a smart mouth. As I've grown older and become a parent myself, it seems to me that rearing a child is the trickiest job in the world. Every word and gesture can have unintended consequences, and a large mistake can mean the difference between a whole, healthy, self-fulfilled human being and a deprived and self-defeating one. Not until I became a father myself did I properly understand what a trying job it is, nor did I understand the full measure of the job my mother did with me. Somehow, a seventeen-year-old single mother managed to do all the roles of two parents at once and made me feel that I had everything I needed or wanted. In the process she instilled a work ethic that has allowed me to make the most of my gifts, to endure the most grueling sporting event in the world, and to cross the finish line first and stand on the podium. "Make every setback an opportunity," she told me. We lived by those words as mother and son, and I've never forgotten them. But what stands out to me, what I'm most struck by, are those things she didn't say or do. There were occasions on which she could have given up, but didn't. When she could have lost her patience, but didn't. When she could have discouraged me, but didn't. Here are a few of the things my mother never said to me: - She never said, "Get off that damn bike and get inside this house." My mother must have been exhausted and even a little desperate at times. She worked two jobs to support us, and there were even occasions when she worked three. She punched a cash register at Kentucky Fried Chicken and sorted packages at the U.S. Post Office to make extra money. But my memories are of a small, uncomplaining dynamo of a woman with seemingly inexhaustible energies. I don't recall her ever complaining about her burdens or fatigue. No matter what, she was my cheerful mother who was never too weary to read to me every evening. You could chart our progress by the succession of better neighborhoods she moved us to. In Richardson, Texas, she bought me my first good bicycle and signed me up for swimming lessons. In Plano she found a job as a secretary with a telecommunications company and bought us our own home. Over the years she worked her way up to account manager and found herself giving on-the-job training to kids much younger than her, with college degrees. My mother refused to acknowledge limits, for herself, or for me. We were partners in carving out better lives for ourselves, and we fought for each other, back to back against our obstacles. She gave me a silver dollar as a good-luck piece and suggested that if I put my mind to it, I could become an Olympian. When the local high school objected to the fact that my amateur athletic career caused me to miss too much school and threatened to flunk me, she didn't scold me. Instead, she searched the entire Dallas area for a better school. In the evenings I would train for my budding career as a triathlete, and sometimes I would ask her to drive behind me as I rode my bike, to check my times and count the miles. She would grab her car keys, and off we would go. She never said, "I'm too tired." And she taught me to never say it either. Once, when I was exhausted and on the verge of collapse in a triathlon, my mother walked miles out on the course to find me, limping along. She strode beside me and said, "Son, you never, ever quit. Whatever you do, you stick to it. You may have to walk, but you're going to finish." With her next to me, I did. When I was diagnosed with cancer, there was something familiar about the sensation of battling once again side by side with my mother. "This isn't going to happen to us," she announced, and I believed her. Her belief was my belief, and I'm convinced it was that belief, in combination with the marvelous abilities of my doctors, that helped me to survive the disease. As my mother once said, "You were a survivor long before you got cancer." How do you adequately express gratitude for the gifts from a parent? I've tried in various ways to tell her thank you over the years. Only once did I come close to succeeding, and even then it was an awkward attempt, as I emerged through the fog of anesthesia from surgery to remove two cancerous lesions from my brain. "Where's my mother?" I asked the nurses. My mother appeared by my bedside. "I want you to know how much I love my life," I said, "and how much I love you for giving it to me." At this writing, I wish I could find better, more eloquent words with which to thank her. But I don't seem able to improve on that very simple statement, uttered in gratitude: I love this life-and I love and appreciate her for giving it to me. As you read this book, you'll see that her story is my story, and my story is hers. I'm many things: a cancer survivor, a father, a Tour de France champion. But I'm one thing before all others, and it's a thing I'm so proud of. I'm a son who seems to have pleased his mother. |
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How does a supermarket checkout girl produce a son who becomes a Tour de France champion? The theorists and social psychologists can bicker all they want over the nature versus nurture question, but for me, the matter's settled. It's perfectly clear: I owe it all to my mother. What would I have been without her? A barroom brawler maybe. Or an arsonist.
