Canzano: Here comes the sun, folks

A Mother's Day column.

Anna and our two youngest daughters at the Oregon Coast.

I have three daughters. The middle one, age 9, announced last week that she volunteered to play the role of “the sun” at the school assembly. 

She wore a bright yellow romper to school on Friday. The event started at 1:50 p.m. I host a radio show from 3-6 p.m. And so I asked her mother to take some photos and videos for me. 

“You gotta be there,” Anna told me, “she’s the sun.”

It’s Mother’s Day. I hope you celebrate yours today. I’ll honor mine. My mom made my lunch, read me books as a kid, and told me I could be anything I wanted. 

I hustled to the elementary school on Friday just in time to see our 9-year-old daughter wheeled across the school gymnasium riding on top of the custodian’s cart. Her classmates had decorated it to look like a giant cloud. 

My daughter’s friends helped her fashion a large star-shaped cardboard mask with a cutout for her smiling face. They painted it yellow. Someone played the Beatles’ song “Here Comes the Sun” on the PA system and out came Zia, pushed by her friend Josie, as the school roared and cheered. 

The scene lasted only 33 seconds. I can’t stop watching the video. But our daughter beamed atop that cart, giggling and waving at her classmates. This is a child who prefers not to be the center of attention. A few years ago when she scored her first goal in soccer as a first grader, her mom and I whooped and cheered from the sideline. Our daughter looked over, scowled at us, and waved at us to “knock it off.”

On Friday, near the end of that ride on the cloud, the girl playing the role of the sun looked at her mom and me and smiled. After school, she got glassy eyes, hugged me, and said: “You came.”

My wife knew what it meant to her. I do, too, now. Anna wakes at 5:30 a.m. on school days, volunteers in the kids’ classrooms, manages their extracurricular activities, and challenges them to be brave. But what makes Anna a terrific mother is how tuned in she is to what our children value and need. 

She — gets — them. 

Over the years I’ve written about a line of mothers. Marcus Mariota’s mom, Alana, taught him to make his bed every morning. Chip Kelly, now the offensive coordinator at Ohio State, told me that his mother buys him a football yearly for Christmas. Last year, right on cue, he sent me a photo of a rubber football.

“Mom for the win,” Kelly texted.

Recently, Oregon coach Dan Lanning told me that he pays attention to the way a recruit interacts with their mother. Said Lanning: “What are they like with their family? How do they treat their mom? All those things kind of stick out to us.”

I wrote a column a couple of years ago about the mother of a local high school golfer, who beat the odds in the best way. I also wrote once about my mom and the dreams she deferred for her children. And I wrote about Anna’s mother. She was a tireless immigrant who raised my wife while she ran a 28-unit motel in a sketchy part of town.

Canzano: The sweet sound of motherhood soup

Today, I’d love to hear about your mom. Tell me something about her in the comment section. Maybe it’s not your biological mother, but someone close to you who stepped in and played the role.

Something. 

Anything. 

Share.

I spend a lot of time thinking about and writing about athletes, coaches, and teams. I’m tuned into college realignment, media rights deals, and the drafts of the various pro sports leagues. On Mother’s Day, I’m struck by how trivial all that stuff feels when compared to the role that mothers play.

Canzano: My mom, a baseball dream, and a red Volkswagen bus

It’s like what Erma Bombeck wrote when God made mothers: “She has to be completely washable, but not plastic. Have 180 moveable parts... all replaceable. Run on black coffee and leftovers. Have a lap that disappears when she stands up. A kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair. And six pairs of hands.”

A couple of years ago I realized that whenever I see a red Volkswagen 1960s-style bus I think of my mom. My parents drove one when I was very young. I have no recollection of the vehicle. I only know it from photographs and stories from my parents, who owned it while my father was playing Triple-A baseball.

My mom loved that car. 

By extension, I do, too. 

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