Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Mother's Day Musings


I hope everyone had a good Mother’s Day.  I certainly did.  My girls and my son-in-law are so much fun to hang out with, I never want to come back home!  Although I KNOW they have to live their own lives, I want to live WITH them (wouldn’t they love that??), and yes, maybe, even live mine THROUGH them a little.  We’ve always joked that I only had children so that I could live vicariously through them.  And I would venture to say, that although we are certainly not supposed to admit it, we all do that to some degree. 


After all, is there anything better on earth than witnessing your kids’ successes?  It’s so much more fun that witnessing your own, at least it is for me.  I stay amazed at how brainy, courageous, funny, beautiful, crass, self-centered, and loving they are….all at the same time!  I KNOW I was nowhere near their level of evolvement or development when I was their ages.  I’m with Gloria Steinem when she said she didn’t think she had a real thought til she turned 30.  These young’uns are so far ahead of where I was at their age, I just sit back and try to keep some kind of semblance of “up”. 


I saw a posting on Facebook over the weekend:  the day you become a Mother (and it could just as well be a Father) is the day you agree to wear your heart on the outside of your body for the rest of your life.  Isn’t that the truth?? 


I’ve lost two mothers in my lifetime.  My mother, Jane, died way too young at age 57 (when I was way too young), and my step-mother, Pat, at age 72.  Different as night and day, they modeled so many important things about mothering for me and so many important things about being a woman.  I stayed mad at my mother for years for being so strict, until I used a few of her techniques on my own kids and saw how great they worked!  I got less mad very quickly after that!  And from Pat I learned how to graciously manipulate an entire family of about 30 without ever raising her voice—quite a talent, huh? 

 So, although I miss them terribly, especially around this time of year, I am so grateful for the mothers I have had in my life.  And that’s not even to mention my fabulous grandmothers!  That’s an entirely different story!