Mind’s Eye On Mother’s Day, the important things
I remember coming home from church on Mother’s Day, looking forward to dinner and Mom’s surprise when she opened her presents — a cookie sheet, a three-pack of Dentyne chewing gum and a boxed set of lacetrimmed handkerchiefs — gifts my siblings and I purchased despite our mother’s repeated insistence that all she wanted was an entire day when we didn’t fight, cry or tattle.
As the car bounced along our potholed lane, I admired my mother’s bouquet: tissue-paper flowers we’d made in our Sunday school classes, sprayed with Lily of the Valley perfume and attached to pipecleaner stems. During general services, after selected classmates expressed appreciation for their mothers, the rest of us distributed the scented blossoms. “Your flowers are pretty, aren’t they, Mom. Hard to make, too. Did you like the speeches?”
“I did, but I hope if one of you is asked to speak on Mother’s Day, you’ll mention things you appreciate other than the way I cook your meals, clean the house and do your laundry. Surely there are things mothers do for their children more important than providing maid service.”
Well. I needed to think
about that. But Bob didn’t. “I’d do better, Mom. I’d tell how you make me weed the garden even when you know I hate it.”
Unfortunately, I was never selected as a Mother’s Day speaker and so never told my mother how grateful I am for the important things she did.
My mother shaped me in ways great and small: She gave me her generous lips, sparse eyelashes, enjoyment of school and belief that a day without dessert was a sad day indeed. Both of us could carry a tune — though no one in our songbird family expressed interest in hearing us do so. Public speaking, teaching and napping came naturally to us, but a cheerful attitude before breakfast did not.
More importantly, Mom noticed and appreciated the details of the world around her. One of my earliest memories is of her teaching me to exist in the moment: to swish my fingers through the cool pond where we gathered watercress, sniff the plant’s pungent aroma then sample a peppery leaf.
When we moved to Lander, Wyo., I heard her marvel at the tilted red cliffs, rushing river and towering pines of our new home and so paid closer attention than I would have if left to my self-centered teenage ways.
She once showed me a spoon she selected when she and her siblings were choosing keepsakes after their mother died. “Of all the things I chose, I treasure this the most,” she said, holding out a large silver spoon for my examination. “This was your grandmother’s stirring spoon for as long as I can remember. See how the curved edge on one side is worn flat from constant use? When I use this spoon, it’s like I’m connected to her.”
My mother also taught me empathy. My sister and I both fled to her at different times when marriages we thought were forever crumbled. We arrived wounded, angry, frightened, and left with a sense of peace and resolution. Neither of us can remember Mom’s words, but we remember the gifts she gave us: our favorite foods, her undivided attention when we wanted to talk and her tears when we cried.
Though my mother didn’t speak the words “I love you” often, I never questioned her love for me. My siblings and I thrived under her care, as did my tempestuous father.
Her home was where our hearts were. She did the important things.
Janet Sheridan’s book, “A Seasoned Life Lived in Small Towns,” is available on Amazon. She writes from Craig, and blogs at www.auntbeulah.com.