The Crux of It

Sunniest Flower

5/12/2013

I have a friend who longs to be understood by her grown sons. And so, she is writing a memoir.

She believes that her sons know nothing of her essence. She says they know her simply as Mom, as their father’s wife, as the daughter of the grandparents they once had. They do not know who she was when she was 18 and married to a man they never knew. They cannot know how she looked when she won the barrel race with her horse Gunner when she was 15. They do not remember when she wore her long hair in an up-do and it was blonde. And they think of her life’s work as bookkeeping, though it has been poetry all along.

The story she is writing is poetic and purposeful and full of messy beauty. From what I have read so far, it is much more than a rehashing of years.

As I read my friend’s story, I began to imagine the story my mother might have written—had she been of the mind to tell it. Not liking undue attention and not inclined to spend much time thinking of herself, she did not write a memoir.

I can only speculate how my mom’s story might read. Beyond the basic, indisputable facts, what she would write about herself might be quite different from what I know. I am, after all, not privy to what lie deep within my mother as she journeyed this Earth. I can only guess what she might have wished for when she was 16 and what it was that she might have changed at 80. I do not know what she feared most.

Truth is, I know her stories better than I know her story. I know she ate a spoiled Bologna sandwich on her honeymoon and spent most of the trip to Colorado with food poisoning. I know some about her life on the farm and growing up poor in rural Kansas. I know some about what she did and did not like about her jobs that helped send four kids to college. I know how she looked sitting on the bed next to her mother, brushing what white hair remained on my grandmother’s head at age 100.

Maybe we children are not meant to know all there is to know about our mothers. Maybe in addition to babies, mothers give birth to a part of their self that reaches inside and picks out what beats loudest, folds it up neat and square and tucks it away for safekeeping. Maybe moms peek in to admire that essence, like they peek in at night to watch their sleeping babies. They touch the soft skin of their babies now grown, they smell the green grass they rolled through in childhood, they taste the mashed potatoes of the family gatherings and they see each added page of the photo album of life. Maybe a mother’s essence is protected from the worst of life’s lessons and not immune to the change of experience. And though it may be hidden from the light of day, it remains.

Did I really know my mother’s essence?

In the way known by all who had the good fortune to have had a loving mother in the center of their childhood universe, yes. While I might not be able to state everything that was important to her or each disappointment or happiness she lived, I know for a fact that she gave her children comfort and safety, kindness and caring, love and security.

I could write lots of stories of what my mom did and rehash her years in all their messy beauty.

But what I would rather remember, and honor, is not what she did, but how she made me feel.

That was, and is, the best part of her essence.

What If

1/27/2013

I have seen in my mirror the lines of my mother’s face.

I was first told I looked like her when she was the age that I am now. I was just past 30 right then and skewed in my worries toward the shallow and small. Concerned, I made plans to stave off any lapse or decline, hoping, as one best does in youth, that I could bypass aging.

I hear it more often now. “You remind me of your mother.”

It is true. Despite my girlish intentions, the lines of my mother’s face have replicated on mine. While my hands are not nearly as small as hers, even if my eyes are blue while hers are brown, although I have a good six inches in height than does she, I remind some folks of my mother.

I am unconcerned when told of the resemblance now. In fact, it makes me smile.

I figure it may mean I am becoming a little more like her. All-round.

If indeed I look a little like her, I am content. But if I have a quarter of her strength, I am richer than Warren Buffett. If I have only a trace of the gentle kindness she is known for, I am a saint. And if ever I am measured to be half as wise and good as she, I am my mother’s daughter.

The crux of what I have learned from her is this: Be not shallow and small. Remember what matters. Fret not the small stuff. And don’t fear the wrinkles.

If I can look in the mirror at the age she is now and see reflected back a woman who has lived these things, I will be beautiful as ever I could be. Beautiful, beneath the age spots and faded eyes and the deep lines on my face.

Half as beautiful, I hope, as she will always be to me.

Written as I sat at the bedside of my mother who died January 26, 2013. She remained strong and kind and continued to teach me, till her dying day.

Love: Voiced

11/30/2012

My fine friend Al, of http://thecvillean.wordpress.com/ fame, recently sent me a message saying he missed me. Oh Al, even if you say that sweet thing to all of your lady blogging friends, thank you. You made this ole girl smile. And I couldn’t stay away too long even with all the distractions.

There have been some very good distractions, most notably the annual trip to The Feast, where spirits were high and gratitude poured freely. My mother has spent most of her time and energy in the last year walking quite gracefully through the dark corridors of cancer. I could shout the word GRATITUDE and still not express the whole of how it felt to spend Thanksgiving in her company and to watch her reign queen over the big bunch.

Added to that excitement is the pleasant distraction of turning more of my creative energy to ‘my real deal’—-code, in my world, for my work in progress. You bloggers out there know what I’m talking about. The “big” book project, that fixation that has been in the back of my mind for quite some time, has finally hatched and has been begging my attention. It lives. And I am steadily and happily nurturing it along.

But that nice distraction hit a big bump recently in the form of what I refer to as the “you need to get a real job” incident. It started in a phone conversation which done gone bad. I, unfortunately, took the ruse to heart and ran with it. Beat myself up, wondered what the heck I was doing, couldn’t write, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t talk, couldn’t get the monkey off my back.

Until one day it just hopped away.

Actually, it didn’t really hop away—I had to use all of the strength I’ve built by doing push-ups to fling it away. And boy was that a load off. Got rid of much of that cargo of bad things that scare me and awful things that make me feel bad.

I gave a heave-ho to the “what’s the value in writing without a paycheck or health benefits”? argument. A firm goodbye to the case of “you are underemployed.” And a final farewell to “what’s the value in that”?

Are you ever silenced by those kinds of thoughts?

They are my worst form of distraction.

But, softly and very faintly, I hear another voice in need of my attention.

“Don’t give up. Don’t be silenced by the fear.”

In the dark time that surrounded my divorce, I was shushed by a “how-the-hell-did-this-happen” kind of overwhelm. My life, as it had been envisioned and lived since my early 20s seemed crushed, null and void. And the view ahead, firmly past age 50, was terrifying. Because it was completely unknown.

Then, the quiet voice spoke thus:

“But there is much to love in the unknown. It holds possibilities that did not exist in the known.”

That is my go-to thought when I am distracted by people with a half empty view of life or the kind of events that tend to stop me in my tracks.

That thought, and the kindness of others, keep me from getting stuck in the muck.

Thank you, Al for reminding me to carry on.

Before the Feast
Thanksgiving 2012