My mom somehow hated skateboarding and loved my passion for it all at the same time so she supported it. I remember her coming home from the grocery store with what seems like one of my first Thrasher mags. It was Herman kick flipping a double set or something like that? She took me to the nearest park every weekend which was almost an hour away until I could drive. Lost her a few years ago to cancer but even before that she still would ask If I was still skating and how it was every time we talked. She was the best.
Lost my mom 2 years ago to cancer too, that shit sucks.
My mom was a church going, rule following, suburban type who had no reference point for skateboarding. She certainly didn't know what can of worms was opening when my brother and I started skateboarding - but she jumped all in. Our house became the 'skate house' and my mom ended up being the mom to a lot more skateboarders than just the 2 she actually birthed. I couldn't count the hours she spent driving us to parks and spots, or the breakfasts she cooked everyone, or the nights she spent worried and upset not knowing where we were (she was that kind of mom).
One time, early on, she was picking us up from a spot just as we were getting busted by the cops and they were taking our boards. When she got out of the car steaming mad I was sure we were all in for it. I was shocked when she directed that anger at the cops, yelling at them and grabbing our boards right out of their hands. I couldn't believe it - I didn't think that attitude was part of her constitution. My mom probably never really "got" skateboarding, but she was just about always backing what her kids were into, no matter what that was. I miss her every day.