Dear Mom,
Happy Mother’s day. (every day is mother’s day right?)
How was your day? Mine was pretty good. I spent it in a hotel not doing much. I worked for 2 hours and then watched some tv and then went to the gym.
I thought about you after my gym time as I flexed my new little muscular arms. I realized my goal was to have arms like yours. One day, long ago, we were all gathered in the family room of the white house in Portland. Some familiy friend or acquaintance commented on how you must have some muscles for all the kids you hauled around. You flexed and all of us little ones dropped our jaws and emitted squeals of pride and wonder.
I doubt though, that an hour in the gym every other day will ever catch up to 7 children arms.
Mothering takes strength.
Later that day I went out and bought some make up. I took it back to the bathroom and checked it out. Again , there is this archetypal model of beauty that I look to attain. It comes from watching you put on your make-up in your bathroom. It seemed the pinnacle of feminimity to me , watching you do that. Unwittingly you created magic for me.
Mothering shows us the beauty of being a woman.
Wittingly you told magical stories. Pistol pete, Calamity Jane, Perilous Pauline, Tinkerbell. The suspense, the plot, the amazing happy endings. I thought you were so imaginative and funny and brilliant to come up with these stories. I felt so bungling when I tried to tell Elijah stories. How could they compare? But they did. I think that he thought they were just as good as I thought yours were.
Mothering is the spirit of delivering a story. No matter how scant the plot.
One night you were rushing us all along to make it out the door to a school event. You told me to go put on the red jumper that Grandma had sewn for me. I protested. You told me firmly not to argue and go put it on. I went up to my closet and had the brainchild that if the dress was damaged, I would not have to wear it. So I did some damage and tore the neck open. I then presented the mysteriously damaged dress to you. "I can’t wear this Mommy."
You gave me this look that is embedded in my psyche. It said, “I am too exasperated with you to punish you for this dress that you have just spitefully torn so I am going to let you punish yourself with the realization that I know exactly what you did.” Then you said, “Go put on the other dress”. I burst into tears.
Good mothering can say it all in one look.
Every night you would say, “Check the bed before you go upstairs” All of our laundry was folded in neat individual stacks that covered half a king size bed.
Every Saturday night you would say,
"Go get your shoes and polish them."
" Get in the tub with your sisters and wash your hair." You would pull each one of us to the faucet and rinse our reluctant heads. Rachel cried every time.
You would line us up to cut our bangs. “Stay still.”
You patiently schooled us in the art of setting a table and resisted futility in the face of learning us some good table manners.
“Go get some milk from Hugh’s.”
2 gallons of milk every day. 1 to 2 cups daily factored in to be spilt on the dinner table.
"Go with your brother and help him carry in the bread." Two big bags of bread from the bread store once a week.
"Go out to the garage and bring in 15 potatoes and scrub them.” Every night dinner for nine at 6:00 sharp.
Daily notes on the counter delegating small jobs that earned big complaints.
"Did you vacuum the stairs yet?"
"Not until you finish your homework."
"This floor doesn’t look like it has been mopped yet."
"When’s the last time you brushed your teeth?"
"Turn off the TV and get to bed….NOW."
Vacations spent boiling spaghetti in old army pots on sooty grills, coaxing heat out of charcoal under a rain dripping tarpaulin. “Go help your father with the tent”
On the two day journey home, I sat on the edge of the motel bed and could hear you crying in the bathroom while the regular chaos ensued all around. "Is Mom crying?" Dad said, "Let your mother be." "But why is she crying? Whats wrong?"
Mothering is hard work.
"Good morning Good morning Good morning to you!"
"Woo hoooo. Dinners ready."
Mothering is a song you sing every day.
You took us shopping for school clothes. I was going into junior high. I wanted this hot pant set that was made out of a purple and black knit print with white trim. The top had giant puffed sleeves with a wide white cuff and huge white lapels and a V-neck . It was a button down dress top that barely covered the hot pants. Truly 1972. You bit your tongue and bought if for me. I wore it for one self conscious day.
Mothering sometimes comes before your personal opinions.
There was that time when I was 16 and asked your permission to go to San Francisco for the weekend to spend some time with a 40 year old lawyer who wanted to take fashion photographs of me. You said, Ha! Absolutely not!”…. I was really mad at you and thought you were really insensitive. …but I get it now.
Mothering is time released.
Every night you would kneel by my bed and say prayers with me. Fold your hands. God bless Mother and Father, God bless Rock., God bless Mike, God bless Scott, God bless Kris. God bless Peter, God bless Rachel and God bless you.
Mothering is spiritual.
Each night you ended the prayer with:
I love you Paula.
I know that Mommy.
You know that?
Yeah, of course, you’re my mom.
Mothering is love.
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