I've been wrestling with guilt this morning, as I think I have most Mother's Day mornings, because I didn't plan for this day very well. I've pretty much resorted to handmade cards from the kids for my moms, and even wonder when they will get them as I forgot to put them in the mail....
So I decided to take a walk to shake it off, and enjoy my morning myself. I began thinking about my mom and all of the women in my life and the legacy they have each left with me.
When I think of my great-grandmother, I remember walking through the hallways built by furniture in her antique store. I smell varnish and wood finishing chemicals. I feel my fingers move across an old secretary like braille, as if I could read the stories it held. I see her sitting on her front porch shelling peas with her children ~ even though I wasn't there, because her children remember and love to tell. I feel the heat on her back as she worked in her garden in the Alabama sun and made it thrive. I get teary at the thought of the blanket found in her closet after she passed away. The one she made and tucked away for my babies, though they would be over a decade in coming. She worked tirelessly and gave endlessly.
I think of my grandmother caring for her in her last weeks. My sweet Gurney, who I cannot recall ever saying an unkind word about anyone. Not a bitter bone in her body ~ oh Lord may I be more like her. No grapes have ever tasted as sweet as hers, and to this day I still think of sleeping over at her house when I smell bacon, eggs and coffee brewing together. I smile when I think about how different she and my Grandaddy were, and how much she sacrificed to let him live his dreams. Thank you for letting your basement be an art studio instead of a playroom, and that dresser to be filled with photographs instead of clothes like you may have preferred.
On my father's side my MaMaw lived a life that makes me tired just thinking about. Six children, and I know Papaw wasn't helping with the bedtime routine (was there even a routine?). On top of that she was an amazing seamstress, working both in and outside the home. At times walking into her house was like floating into the Disney castle, with pageant dresses that she was in the process of making literally, everywhere. One of my last memories of her is watching as she moved around my feet on her knees as she pinned my pants for hemming. She was in her eighties. I could have hemmed them myself, but it required too much effort.
None of these women ever did large, amazing things in the world's eyes ~ like I wanted to do. They put their hand to the plow in the daily grind. I realize now that I would have ended in a heap if I had gone to "save the world" (at least in the way I had envisioned) ~ either shriveled in exhaustion and/or swelled with pride. I realize now that I needed to be saved, through the exhaustion and swelling with pride that being a mother brings, daily. My heart overflows with thankfulness with the life I have been given, and it is simply in being given, that I want to give.
I find myself out of words now, not even getting to my own mom. It's like what a friend of mine said recently about her son as he was performing in front of his class while she watched. She had to try not to look directly at him, as he was nervous and barely able to sing with the rest of the kids. If she caught his gaze his lips would quiver and he could barely continue singing. It's just like that with your mom. There is a comfort there where articulation ends and emotion flows. I don't have to try. I just am. Because of you I am all that I am. Thank you, Mom.
The day I became a mom, and she a grandmother. and the scraggly flowers our babies picked for me today.
