A seniors sendoff to La Salle, salute to his mother

By Drew Lazor
Collegian Staff
April 26, 2006

Since my freshman year of high school, my mother has carried on a cute, if inexplicable, tradition: she cuts out random newspaper and magazine articles and mails them to me. She neatly folds snipped-out pieces of wisdom, places them in envelopes embossed with her office address in the left corner, and drops ‘em in the box.

I always read and appreciated them, but never gave the whole thing much thought. As graduation quickly approaches, however, I’ve begun to understand why she does it. She wants me to be ready for anything.

My mom emigrated from the Philippines in the early 1980s and works as a pediatrician. She certainly doesn’t have a background in print media, and I rarely see her reading anything, save for Cutis, a monthly doctor’s journal that reports on contagious skin diseases. Regardless of this, she always seems to find strange information that she deems relevant. “I really think you should read this,” she often writes on Post-It notes attached to the pages.

The nature of these articles tends to vary, so much so that most of them have absolutely nothing to do with the industry I’m trying to crack into. I’ve gotten a New York Times article describing the horrors of working as a personal assistant to a Hollywood executive. I’ve received a U.S. News and World Report guide to writing screenplays. She also sent me one explaining how more and more recent college grads are moving back in with their parents (nice try).

Earlier this year, she actually did forward me something to do with newspapers: a clip describing the extreme decline of the business, and how it’s extremely hard to land a job with a daily, weekly, monthly, etc. Thanks for the encouragement, right? I initially laughed at the irreverence of it all, and how it seemed to be signaling her prediction for my future. Then I gave it some thought.

Up until then, I was always too naïve to connect the dots, but now it’s all so clear. There’s no telling where I’ll end up after May 14, and absolutely no way of knowing if the long hours I put in slumming for the Collegian will translate into a situation where someone actually pays me to write about crappy horror movies or unintelligible independent hip-hop releases.

My mom wants me to know that she’s thinking of me, but more importantly, she wants me to know that I should be thinking of me, too. While it’s possible that I could catch a lucky break and become the cutest cub reporter Entertainment Weekly has ever seen, it’s certainly not probable. Maybe I’ll be bringing Jerry Bruckheimer’s assistant’s secretary’s assistant her morning coffee. Maybe I’ll pen John Stamos’ next sitcom pilot. Maybe I’ll just move back to Maryland and…okay, enough speculation.

All in all, Mom’s motivation is simple—I need to realize that where I want to go and where I’ll end up could very well be two different places. Could I find happiness and success doing something I never thought I’d be doing? Absolutely. Even though she sent me an article basically outlining how I won’t get a job anytime soon, it doesn’t mean my mom doesn’t believe in me. It means that she does—and she believes I’m capable of doing a million other things, too. Absentee ballots are sometimes misplaced in the mail, but votes of confidence rarely are.

I’d like to use my very last Collegian article to say thank you. Thank you, top-notch staff. Thank you, interested readers. Hell, thanks to the administration, too. But most of all, thanks, Mom. Thanks for encouraging me to achieve, and thanks for helping me realize that opportunity isn’t restricted to a single zip code.

One more thing: keep an eye on the mail pile this week. I’m sending you an article I really think you should read.

lazora1@lasalle.edu