I was digging around in the garage, current home of almost everything my parents own since their remodelling their house, and I came across an envelope that had a bunch of old papers in it.

It turns out it was a lot of my mom's old art from when she was a kid and her old report cards.

I spent about half an hour delicately flipping through every page, inspecting each item. Sometimes we forget that our parents were once children too, who were not too different from ourselves as children. It was like the gap that had be created in the difference in our age had, briefly, been bridged.

Her art wasn't anything special. Typical. The same sort of figures that kids today still scrawl today, probably with those timeless waxy crayons. Most were forgettable, some were inspired, but all within the realm of the average child's abilities. Still, it was all fascinating to me, to peer back in time to find a little girl fascinated with boats (it was flowers, for me at least).

Where the art give me an idea what this little girl thought, the report cards showed me how she acted. I saw a prevalent parallel between us. In most I saw "has the potential to do well, just needs to spend more time on her work" and the like. Smart, yet unfocused. Still managing to get average marks. The similarity isn't surprising, it had just never occurred to my that the successful woman who raised me was at one point almost exactly like me.

I can't say I really 'know' that child, but I can say that this experience has humanized my perception of my mother. I know there is move of her past in that box, but I had to pry myself away, else I would still be sitting down there. When I see her again tomorrow, I'm going to give her a hug. And maybe some day we can go through that box together.