 Poetry: May 17, 2017 Issue [#8294] |
  Poetry
This week: Mom-ification! Edited by: Fyn  
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My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.~~ Mark Twain
(Sounds like my mother, but then she always said that the more 'difficult' a child was, the more creative they would grow up to be!)
Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn't interest you, don't do it - I would have made a terrible mother. ~~Katharine Hepburn
(My grandmother, Annie and Kate (as she referred to her) were good friends. My grandmother, at the time was a nanny. They met on board the 'Queen Mary' and Annie told me that Kate had asked her about taking care of other people's kids, that she thought that taking care of her own would be bad enough. But, not for her, mind you, and she insisted she was far too selfish to be a mother. They came from different worlds. Kate graduated from Bryn Mawr; my grandmother was a nanny to the (then) president of Vassar College. Yet they stayed in touch after that trip. Katherine Hepburn wrote amazing letters to Annie and they corresponded until my grandmother passed away. Annie always said don't name a child after me; name one after Kate. My daughter's name is Kelly-Katherine Anne.)
My mother is a big believer in being responsible for your own happiness. She always talked about finding joy in small moments and insisted that we stop and take in the beauty of an ordinary day. When I stop the car to make my kids really see a sunset, I hear my mother's voice and smile. ~~Jennifer Garner
(Hmmm ... My mantra about being observant comes to mind ....)
My mother tongue, Mende, is very expressive, very figurative, and when I write, I always struggle to find the English equivalent of things that I really want to say in Mende. For example, in Mende, you wouldn't say 'night came suddenly'; you would say 'the sky rolled over and changed its sides.' ~~Ishmael Beah
('the sky rolled over and changed its sides.' --what a beautiful image, a different way of expressing that thought...I need to read some of his work!)
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I view "Mother's Day" from both the perspective of a daughter and a mother. My mom's been gone for fourteen years now. It feels like yesterday and forever ago. I still think of her at random moments and think, I need to call mom and tell her about ... often reaching for my phone before I remember that I can't. Yet, I believe she knows what ever it is.
My mother's favorite perfume was Este Lauder's "Youth Dew." You knew when she was around because you could smell it wafting through the air when she walked through the door. I always gave her a bottle of it for Mother's Day. I kept that last bit in the bottle, kept it in the bathroom medicine cabinet, faithfully packing and unpacking it after several moves. Always in the medicine cabinet on the same shelf, in the exact same place. After 'her Cubbies' won the series last fall, I let the pooch out for a final wander, going outside and telling the sky they'd won, and I knew she knew. Upon walking back into the house, I was hit with an eye-watering scent of her perfume and went to the bathroom because I was sure the bottle, somehow, must have fallen from its shelf where it has been for the past twelve years. It hadn't, indeed, it was not there at all. Eyes still watering, I searched the bathroom. Had it been somehow moved? It had to be here. But it wasn't. The next morning, my hubby asked if I'd sprayed some for Mom after the Cubs won. He smelled it too! Never have found the bottle. Guess Mom figured I didn't need it anymore after her Cubs finally won. I went into a store and sprayed a tester bottle the day my daughter went shopping for her wedding gown just to feel as if mom were with us ....
From earliest memory, I remember my father insisting we make something for mom on her day. He'd tell me that being a 'mom' was the hardest job in the world. It didn't matter if I gathered her flowers from the far field, drew her a picture or wrote her a poem, but that I always had to do something extra special to say thank you, not just as a child but for as long as she lived. I always did. I remember being sixteen. I was in a "I know more than you do" phase and mom and I were arguing over everything. She was also going through 'the menopause' from Hell.' Mood swings like you wouldn't believe. We hadn't, literally, said a word to each other in a couple of weeks. Dad reminded me about Mother's Day, told me to be sure I did something special even if we were fighting over 'some little thing.' I told him it wasn't a 'little' thing. He said that while right now it might be huge, that in the grand scheme of things, it really was 'little' and to do as he said. I hemmed and I hawed and I couldn't think of anything to do, anything I truly wanted to do for the mother whom I thought was being frightfully unfair and mean. My grandmother said it was because 'growing up was one of the hardest things a daughter could do; therefore it was one of the hardest things for a mother to watch. At the time, I thought she didn't know what she was talking about.
I adored my dad and didn't want to let him down, so I knew I had to come up with something. I knew I didn't want to make something. I took my babysitting money and wandered the stores in our little town looking for something that would work. At the drugstore I saw the tester bottles of perfumes. My mother 'used' to always use a perfume called 'Timeless' and, to be perfectly honest, I'd never liked how it smelled. That was the day I first smelled 'Youth Dew.' It smelled so pretty. I thought maybe the 'youth' part of it would make my mom feel young again. It was frightfully expensive. I didn't have enough money to buy it, but the man at the store said I could work after school for a couple of weeks to make up the difference. I agreed. Walking home, I thought about how I hadn't even wanted to be bothered doing anything for mom, and here I'd now agreed to give up two weeks of after school time to get her something. I thought I was going crazy too. I wondered if it was catching, or something.
I wrapped it up carefully. (Wrapping a present, in our house, was as important as the gift itself!) I thought about how to explain why this gift. I fell upon my old standby of writing her a poem: it was the easiest way to go about it; framing words that were hard to say straight out was always easier in a poem. I came up with some rot about how it was magic perfume and that mom wasn't getting 'old' and wouldn't ever 'get' old as long as she used the perfume. Mom broke down in tears and then I started crying and we talked and the 'magic perfume' was more magical than I'd thought! She wore only that perfume for the rest of her life. My kids grew up calling it her 'blue perfume' because it came in a blue bottle. It 'was' Grammy to them. Still is intrinsically entangled with her.
Eventually, I grew up and had my first child. I was in the Army and in Alaska. In the first thirty seconds of holding my eldest daughter, my parents went from being less than smart to being the most brilliant people on the planet! Many humbling thoughts went rumbling through my head that day. I have never appreciated my mother more than I did that day. So much instantly, finally, became clear.
My kids never had a dad that was the sort to instill in them, as I had had, the ideas of Mother's Day gifts. But my mother certainly took up the slack. Wilted dandelion bouquets, dime store earrings, crayon drawings gave way to delivered dozens of roses, thoughtful gifts, phone calls from oceans away. One of the greatest gifts was simply their time. Time just doing 'us' things together in the midst of double jobs, high school teenagers and house remodels. Precious time.
My youngest (at 33) tells me I need to live forever. (My getting so sick in March scared her silly.) But there is time still, and it is nice to know that there is an appreciated there. Two of the youngest grandkids brought me a dandelion and violet bouquet that, given the 'footprints' in my front garden, was picked at the very last minute. They are drooping in a crystal vase dead center on the dining room table. (My thoughtful husband having whisked the roses away to the bedroom for the time being!) Precious. I could literally feel my folks smiling over my shoulder. Perspectives are truly grand! |
Yes, they are all about Moms!
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A Mother's Day remembrance ... An Elizabeth's Poetry & Short Story Contest Entry
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ShiShad  writes: I really enjoyed reading your newsletter and all of the specific reasons some of the members write poetry.I especially enjoyed reading your poem! I am flattered that you chose to include my opinion and my poem here.
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