My daughter becoming a mom has been a joy to me. To watch her and all she has gone through in the first 9 months of my granddaughters life has been exciting, funny, memorable, and poignant on many occasions.
She, who has asked for virtually no advice from me since she was about 3, suddenly... sometimes ...does. Which is nice...different..but nice.
Now don't get me wrong this is by and large her show all the way and my advice is not likely to mean squat a good deal of the time ...okay especially the advice that I may offer unbidden..but those moments that I see her actually heeding it..those are great!
Moms like to help.
We like to help when asked.
We like to help when not asked.
Actually, we especially like to help when not asked because that's when we see you are heading down the wrong way and truth to be told it is usually a path we mistakenly went down ourselves so we are just trying to save you the trip.
That's what moms do...try to save you from any unnecessary wrong trips.
FYI... We do that our whole lives not just when you are young and in our care.
Being a mom is tough work and It never ever ends. Never. Ever Ever....Ever.
You might think that it will get easier and yes in many ways it does get easier...and in many it gets harder...especially when you start having kids of your own because then WE start having grandkids and that just starts it all over for us.
I made my mom a grandma at a rather young age. She was in her early 40's.
It was not, for one moment what she expected from me or probably wanted for me and she knew how very unprepared I was for the job. She never let on that she was worried about it. She just jumped in and helped me.
She had a wonderful knack of helping me figure things out and then letting me think I figured it on my own. Considering how little I actually knew she probably had to spend many a sleepless night trying to figure out the easiest way to get me to know what I needed to know.
I didn't know much about kids because I was not one of those girls that did a lot of babysitting, I had a younger sister who I tried really hard to ignore, and I had declared at the age of about 7 that I was never going to have kids. Never. Ever Ever...Ever.
I was going to be a reporter and I was heading out in the world. No kid to tie me down.
So the mechanics of babies and kids I had ignored.
Diapers were cloth and involved pins and rubber pants and washing machines.
Bottles involved lots of measuring and boiling.
The little walkers that they sat in were death traps and my poor Stacey probably started walking at 9 months for fear of getting stuck permanently in her little yellow walker.
Motherhood in the 70's was not easy.
Probably less easy in the 50's.
So my mom helped me with all the basics.
A left handed diapering wizard, she taught me how to hold down a squirming baby with one hand and diaper..with pins no less... with the other and all the various songs and distractions that went with accompanied that.
She helped directly and indirectly. She jumped in feet first and she rocked my babies and read to my babies and took pictures of my babies and of course she loved my babies.
She adored each and everyone of her grandchildren with every bit of her being.
An incredibly easy going person, I remember her getting as angry as I ever saw her with one of the teachers at Herman Ave school because she felt that one of them had said a disparaging remark about her grandchild. That was it for that teacher. She was livid.
It was shortly after that she decided she should not be the librarian where her grandchildren were attending school if possible.
Probably a good idea.
My mom and I became friends by the time I was about 25. She called me one morning and she asked me to go to lunch and hear a speaker with her.
There was a slight pause and she said " they said I could bring a friend and right away I wrote your name down on the sheet...I hadn't realized that I thought of you that way until I did that"
I spoke to or saw my mom probably a minimum of 4 or 5 days out of every week...more often that not it was every single day..for over 55 years. Even when she no longer had a clue who I was and thought I was "selling something" we talked.
The last few months have been tough.
I sleepwalked through the first Thanksgiving and Christmas without her. It had been a matter of weeks since she died at that point.
Easter was a little tougher but mostly Easter was tough because May was fast approaching.
May is the month that I always considered my Moms own personal month.
May holds not only Mothers day but also her anniversary and her Birthday. It was her favorite month. She loved the green of springtime, planting of her flowers, opening up her windows and getting some"nice fresh air".
She would love today.
The sun is shining. the birds are chirping happily, the grass is a brilliant green, flowers are blooming and its Mothers Day.
She loved beautiful cards and good chocolate. She was most easy to please on Mothers day.
She was most easy to please every day.
My mom taught me many things in life...cooking? check! Sewing...not a chance...housekeeping...she tried.
The important stuff, of course, is none of that.
She taught me about unconditional love.
She taught me that loving and caring for a child is a full time, whole life experience. It does not end at 18 or 21 or when they get married or even when they have kids of their own. It doesn't end if they do things you don't like or don't agree with. It doesn't end if they make bad choices. It doesn't end if they move away.
It doesn't end...period.
My mom is gone and I talk to her everyday. I wonder what she would do in any given situation. When I recently made a fairly bad decision based on anger and fatigue, my first thought was how great it would be to call her and tell her what I did.
I knew she would have laughed( it was funny...awful...but funny non the less) and then she would have told me to own up to what I did and try to make it right.
Which I did.
Right now i know she would tell me get off that computer and "get outdoors Diane, It is a beautiful day!" She would then break into a chorus of "Oh what a beautiful Morning".
So..
"Oh what a beautiful morning. Oh what a beautiful day. I've got a beautiful feeling every things going my way!"
Happy 1st Mothers day to my Amanda.
Happy Mothers Day to Sheena and Laura.
Happy Mothers Day to my mother-in-law Ruth
Happy Mothers Day to all my friends...
But most of all...
Happy Mothers Day to my mom.. I miss you.. love you...and I am going outside now.
