I will be out of town for Mother's Day -- spending it with my mom! Yay! She's 86 years old, still living on her own - cooking, cleaning, shopping, driving. She's one of the Steel Magnolias.
My friend jo loves lists, and Facebook has me thinking in groups of 5, so here's a list of 5 of the most important things that my mom has taught me:
1.
Not just how to cook, but how to enjoy cooking. She isn't a gourmet cook with fancy sauces and 100 ingredients, but she's inspired me from a very sound foundation: throwing together a yummy and nutritious dinner in no time flat, and often with limited resources, is a skill my whole family appreciates. I just wish I could master her cornbread. It's unequaled and continues to hover just out of my grasp.
2.
How to be patient.
"
Patience is a virtue." This one was repeated like a mantra throughout my life -- in fact it still echoes in my head when needed. Helps me in my life, in my work and even in the kinds of hobbies I've grown to love. Just stopping to breathe, count to ten before responding, the power of the pause. All these things harken back to simply having patience.
3.
How to sew.
Mom made a lot of my clothes growing up. Mostly out of necessity -- Dad was a teacher and she was a SAHM (like most of the era), so we lived quite frugally (another lesson for another list). and for a while - blissfully brief, in the grand scheme of things - I made many of my own clothes. And it's some comfort to know that if it ever came to it, I could again. When I was a little girl I had, as most little girls of that and subsequent eras have, a Barbie doll. But we didn't have the resources for all the accoutrement like the Dream House or the wardrobe. Not to
buy them, anyway. But my Barbie had a designer wardrobe, and I was the designer - even down to the wedding dress. And she had quite the 'apartment' too. Sure, it may have looked like an orange crate from the outside, but it was painted and furnished with great elan (again, from the House of Me). I still think that I've fared far better in life from having to exercise my imagination and develop those crafting skills than I would have benefitted by frequent trips to ToysRUs to
buy the latest and greatest.
4.
How to love.
Mom and Dad had been married for almost 60 years when Dad died. Their marriage survived the kinds of things that marriages everywhere face...kids, financial challenges, differences of opinion, illness, death...they just dealt with it and kept going. To the very last, even when sitting in their living room watching TV, they'd be holding hands. I never had to doubt that my parents were deeply in love with each other, and always loved us. When my father died, I opened the eulogy with "The best gift a father can give his children is to love their mother. This my father did, in abundance." And mom loved him right back...and still does.
5.
How to keep going.
I'm a firm believer in the premise that life doesn't hand us anything that we don't have the resources to handle. I've learned this from watching her. It may be a struggle to martial those resources sometimes, but you do it and you soldier through. Mom occasionally has surprised me with her perserverance, and sometimes to some it may look a little like martyrdom, but if you really know her you know that it comes from an abiding committment to never giving up. No matter what.
She's taught me a billion additional little life lessons in my 58 years, and God willing has many more to offer, but these 5 speak most to the core of who I am and how I live.
What has your mom taught you?
