I know in my head that she is not in her apartment across town. The apartment sits empty waiting on new tenants. I know in my head that she has a new home, complete with a new husband and new adventures to look forward to as they begin their life together.
I know all of this. But still, sometimes I pretend. I pretend that she is still in her apartment across town. I pretend that she has been so busy lately with the two part-time jobs that she had until recently and hanging out with her friends at coffee shops that, well, she just has not been able to make it out to the home where she grew up, and where her mom and dad and youngest brother all still reside. It’s all good really.
And even when I am not pretending that she is in the apartment across town, it is still all good. I am very happy for her to be married to the man she loves and whom loves her abundantly. I rejoiced with her when her young man proposed. I was delighted to sit on the love seat in the dress shop, watching her try on wedding dresses, waiting to discover if she would find the right dress to say “yes” to. I was more than happy to hear the music she had selected to be played before her wedding ceremony and the piece that would be playing as she walked down the aisle toward her future, holding her daddy’s arm. I ordered the beautiful bright blue suede pumps that would adorn her feet under her once-in-a-lifetime dress. The blue suede shoes seeming like a perfect match to walking down the aisle to Elvis’ “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” (My little girl never particularly cared for the traditional wedding march.)
Two days after the pretty-much-perfect-in-every-way wedding day, our daughter climbed into the passenger seat of her new husband’s loaded down GMC truck, pulling a trailer with her equally loaded down Nissan Altima, and off the two of them drove, out of the parking lot of the apartment building where she no longer lives and toward their new home a few states away. Her oldest brother, whose flight back to his life in another state, and her youngest brother and mom and dad, all waving bye for now.
So, I know in my head, and even in my heart, that she is not in the apartment across town. But just a week into this new stage of life, with a married daughter and all, the reality hits in new ways. Like when I walk into her old bedroom, where she stayed before the apartment across town, and where she also stayed the week before her wedding…and I see her old softball glove, the one her coach gave her when she was 10, lying next to the Ziploc sandwich bags containing all of the volleyball ribbons that signified team victories from her junior high and high school days. That’s when I realize anew, she is not in her apartment across town.
Archive for the ‘Family and friends’ Category
A softball glove and volleyball ribbons
Posted in Family and friends, tagged apartment, bride, children, daughter, husband, music, new, softball glove, volleyball, wedding, wedding dress on January 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Golf balls and kitchen drawers
Posted in Family and friends, tagged children, golf balls, kitchen, treasures on October 15, 2014| 1 Comment »
There is a golf ball in one of my kitchen drawers. It’s in my kitchen towel drawer to be exact…the drawer to the left of the kitchen sink, at the end of the kitchen counter. The golf ball is a Nike golf ball and it has been in that drawer for a long time…I mean for years.
Why is there a golf ball in my kitchen towel drawer? Well, I don’t remember exactly how it got there originally. It was either because I took it away from then-much-younger brothers who were playing with the golf ball in the house and I was pretty sure that if the indoor golf ball play continued, something was either going to get broken or someone was going to get hurt when one brother decided to throw it at another brother. Or, it may have ended up there during a mad cleaning dash when guests were about to arrive at our home.
Both are plausible reasons why the Nike golf ball landed in the kitchen towel drawer. But, as I mentioned earlier, the golf ball has been in that same drawer for a long time…for years.
Every once in a while, I pick the golf ball up as I place clean kitchen towels into the drawer. I turn the ball over in my hand. Then…I place the golf ball back into its designated space…in the kitchen towel drawer and I push the drawer handle until the drawer closes snugly.
The golf ball reminds me of young brothers, sometimes with sister included, running through our house… giggling, yelling, wrestling, chasing, being underfoot, getting scolded to take their play out of the kitchen where I might be busy cooking a meal or washing dishes or putting groceries away or talking on the phone. The brothers, and sometimes sister, usually left the kitchen much as they entered…giggling, yelling, wrestling, or chasing.
Squeals and screams would come and go, into and out of our kitchen, throughout days and over months and years. A door frame leading from our kitchen into the laundry room marks the heights of the brothers and the sister who passed through that kitchen.
The kitchen is quieter now…noisy conversations conducted by deeper voices descend upon it less frequently. But, every now and again there still may be quick-paced footsteps heard in that kitchen, accompanied by giggles and yelling and even some chasing.
I treasured the kitchen traffic then…and I treasure it now. And as a memorial…I keep a golf ball in my kitchen drawer.
Riding with my Dad
Posted in Family and friends, tagged steering wheel on May 16, 2014| Leave a Comment »
I spoke with my dad on the phone last night. He asked me if I remember the first time I drove on a Mother’s Day Sunday. I thought back to my learning-to-drive days as a young teenager, but that was not the time frame he was remembering. He began telling me a story that I’ve heard many times, but do actually remember parts of myself.
My dad reminisced about that Sunday morning long ago when he took me along to a little farm our family owned on a country highway, to cut some roses for my mother. I accompanied him on the short trip, sitting next to him on the long bench-like front seat. I was probably four-years-old.
When we arrived at the farm and turned into the graveled driveway, my dad decided that it would be easier and quicker work if he went and cut the flowers while I sat in the car. I sure didn’t mind that because I would hold onto the steering wheel and pretend to drive while I watched him meander up the drive into the farm yard to retrieve the roses.
Evidently, on this Sunday morning, I decided that simply holding on to the large steering wheel wasn’t realistic enough pretending and I decided to grab the gear shift on the steering wheel column. I moved the gear shift into neutral and the car that my dad had left in park began backing down the narrow driveway toward the highway.
My father heard the crunching sound of rubber tires rolling over gravel and looked up to see his black and white car with his four-year-old at the wheel moving away from him. I was thrilled to have the car moving, never recognizing any danger whatsoever and then happy to see my daddy running to meet me.
Thankfully, the wheels on the car had been turned, so the car was not going to roll too far and my daddy ran really fast I thought to get to me. My dad stopped the car, opened the driver’s side door and scooped up his little girl.
I’m sure my dad breathed a sigh of relief and maybe even a prayer of thanks, but I was none the worse for wear; excited that I had gotten the car to move all by myself.
My father mentioned in our phone conversation that he doubted I would remember, but often during my childhood years, he would take me along for the ride when he had to go somewhere. But, I do remember. I remember that some of my favorite times were sitting alongside my dad, riding in his Chrysler or Dodge sedan or later in his Jeep truck, running an errand for my mom or him going to check on some of his business matters. It wasn’t that the errand missions were exciting. Sometimes I would end up sitting in the passenger seat waiting on my dad to finish a conversation with one of his friends or business acquaintances, for what seemed like a short eternity to a kid. But, that really didn’t bother me…it was a small price to pay to go riding with my dad.
Mothers
Posted in Family and friends, tagged children, moms, mothers, mothers day on May 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »
It’s the day after Mother’s Day and thoughts about the mothers in my life still bounce about in my head. Yesterday I went to church with my family and at the beginning of the service we watched a video of a man interviewing job candidates for a job with a list of requirements that no one human could ever fulfill. Except… women all over the world carry out the tasks every day that were listed in the job description presented in the interviews. These women are moms. My eyes welled up with tears as the interviewer revealed to the multiple interviewees that the job description was for the job of “mom.”
I watched the video and thought about how I love being a mom…and I thought about my mom and my grandmothers who influenced my life so much. I’m thankful for each one of them.
My maternal grandmother grew up in eastern Tennessee, the daughter of a farmer. She worked hard all of her life. There was not a physical task that she was afraid to undertake. She didn’t have a lot of education. Her handwriting was always hard for me to read. But she knew a lot about a lot of things, like growing any kind of plant. She had the greenest of green thumbs. The yard around her house across the street from ours was full of all kinds of flowers and trees. She could take a cutting from any plant, put it into the ground and it would grow at her command. It was amazing to me, even as a child. I did not inherit her green thumb.
My grandmother like to play ball with me when I was little. She would throw a rubber ball and I would catch it and toss it back. She was always up for buying a new large in diameter bouncy ball, that we would bounce back and forth. A love for bouncing balls I did inherit.
My maternal grandmother liked a good April’s Fool prank. I remember listening to her stories about pranks while lying beside her in bed after the lights in our house were turned out for the night. Her stories made me laugh.
This grandmother of mine loved music and liked doing the twist. She taught me how to ride my bike and let me and my cousin stay up late at her house watching Elvis movies or westerns. She loved her children and grandchildren, but didn’t always know how to express that love. She was a simple woman who appreciated hard work and sitting outside on a big swing in the evening.
My paternal grandmother was also a native of eastern Tennessee. She had a gentle southern Tennessee accent. She was a baker of breads and cakes and sometimes when I smell sausage cooking the mornings, I feel as though I’m walking into her kitchen. She took a lot of meals to many people in her community. She could talk to anyone and was charming with her southern graces.
This grandmother was tall and loved wearing sandals. I remember her taking me to feed the ducks at a small lake near her home. She loved a good cup of coffee and visiting with my mom. She adored my grandfather and he adored her right back. The two of them taught me how to bowl and play golf. She would let me spend hours and hours running through her shrubberies playing games with the neighbor boy who lived across the street. She taught me how to play a game of rummy and let me teach her how to play crazy eights, though she would mention that I sometimes changed the rules a bit during the game.
She is what comes to my mind when I think of a southern lady.
And then there is my momma, the lady who most inspired me to want to be a momma myself. My mom was and is a hard worker like her mother before her. She can manage a budget with amazing capability. When I was young, she typically wore pretty shirt dresses and nice shoes. I used to think that when I became a mom, I would have to trade in my favorite blue jeans and sneakers for shirt dresses and dress shoes. Thankfully, times and styles changed and I have done ok mothering in my blue jeans and tennis shoes.
I have watched my mom do whatever she needed to do to care for her family. She loves her children and grandchildren with the utmost loyalty. She is proud of every one of them.
Moms can be amazing women and I am blessed to have watched three of those amazing moms up close.
There’s a puppy in my lap
Posted in Family and friends, tagged bow ties, cats, puppies, Scout and Darcy on May 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »
There’s a puppy in my lap. His name is Scout. His sister, Darcy, is lying nearby on a blanket on our sectional. Scout and Darcy are the dynamic brother and sister puppy duo who arrived at our home in January at the age of six weeks. Now they are five months old. They have grown so much from the little fluff balls they were when we first brought them home.
Scout and Darcy were part of a litter of pups that belonged to a friend of mine. The momma, a terrier mix, and the daddy, a beautiful Brittany Spaniel, belong to my friend as well. It was an unplanned pregnancy, but turned into a blessing for us all.
Our family had been searching for just the right puppy for almost a year, without success. Then I heard about my friend’s litter of puppies, free to a good home. Our family decided to take a look at them.
When four members of our family went to pick out one puppy to love, we picked out two. We had just lost our much loved golden retriever, Ellie, and our dog-lonesome hearts decided that we needed two pups instead of one. It was the right decision.
Puppies…they are a lot of work. And puppies…they bring a lot of joy. Scout has a low-to-the-ground stocky body, the shape of his mother. He has a white wiry coat with large brown spots, a terrier nose and beard, and floppy brown ears. He has lots of brown freckles on his otherwise pink tummy. Scout’s white paws are huge.
Darcy looks more like their Brittany Spaniel dad, only much daintier. Her features are fine and her legs are long. She has jet black, soft fur, except for the whitest white fur that interrupts her shiny black coat in places. Her paws are dainty and small. Darcy has a lot of energy, whereas her brother, Scout, is much more laid-back, an enjoyer of sitting quietly in our front yard watching a butterfly flutter by.
Darcy likes to run and run and run and run. Scout likes to run and then sit…while Darcy continues to run and run circles around him.
Scout likes to wander off into the woods for a great explore. Darcy likes to follow Scout. They both have learned to accept the bath time that they need after a great explore into the woods, where they find all sort of smelly smells to adopt as their own and bring back home with them.
They both prefer to eat our cat’s weight management cat food to their premium brand puppy food. They both like our cat, Chris (long story about the cat name). Chris the cat tolerates the puppies, often with much hissing and spitting and tapping a pup’s head or nose. But, Chris the cat has not scratched either of them…yet.
Scout likes to lick. He seems to like to lick anything, but human limbs attached to his people’s bodies seem to be his favorite. He especially likes to lick feet. Darcy doesn’t lick as much as her brother. She does like to stand on her hind legs and ask to be picked up. She likes to be held and comforted, which is fine for now, but could be a problem if she gets much bigger.
Scout likes wearing a bow tie on his collar. Darcy likes to look at Scout when he is wearing the bow tie on his collar. Both of them could do a better job of coming when they are called and they still don’t let their people know every time they need to go outside before they go inside. But, they love their people and their people love them. That is why this morning, there’s a puppy in my lap.
Well Done, Timothy Brown
Posted in Family and friends, tagged Air Force Academy, bike riding, determination, graduate on May 7, 2014| 1 Comment »
When my third-born Jeffrey walked into his kindergarten class on his first day of school, I was a bit weepy. I restrained the tears that were filling my heart until I had dropped him off and collected the small gift bag from his sweet new teacher, Mrs. Tiffany. The bag contained a little poem, a pack of Kleenex and a tea bag for us moms to use when we got back to our homes while our little students stayed at the school.
Once back at home, the tears spilled out and ran down my cheeks. I sat in a recliner in my bedroom, surprised by all of the emotion. I guess that I had wrongly assumed that it would not be as hard to take the third child to kindergarten. After all, I had done this twice before. But it was hard…another daytime companion would be spending part of the day away from his mom.
My bout of sadness was interrupted by child number four. He came into my room, walked over to the chair where I was sitting and announced that he wanted to learn to ride his bike…without the training wheels…right then.
So the weeping mom turned mechanic as I took the training wheels off the repainted, hand-me-down purple bike. My three-year-old Timmy’s little legs could not touch the ground when he sat on the bike. I wondered how he would ever be able to master the riding-without-training-wheels skill when the bike was so much bigger than he was.
We rolled the now-two-wheeler out to the edge of our cul-de-sac driveway and pointed the bike toward our garage. I held the bike while he balanced on the seat. If I let go, the bike would fall over and Timmy could not stop it. So I began walking and pushing the bike and he began pedaling. I let go of the bike and off he went. I wondered how the ride would end, he could not just stop the bike and put his feet down, his feet didn’t reach the ground. But my determined little boy did not stop the bike at the other end of the driveway, he simply bailed off the bike when it reached the end of the drive and let the bike roll into the grass. Problem solved.
For the rest of the morning, I was busied by my three-year-old-turned-bike-rider. Over and over again, I would balance him upon the seat at one end of the drive and he would pedal as fast as he could to the other end of the driveway and then jump off the bike. He mastered riding the bike and dismounting by the end of the morning. He mastered the bike; it did not master him.
I have watched my Timothy use this same determination to master other skills and challenges over the last many years. He sets his goals and then works…he works hard. He works hard at work and he works hard at play. His determination and effort have served him well. And with each accomplishment he has remained humble. It has been a joy to watch him grow into the man version of the determined boy he has been all of his life.
This morning at a school assembly, I watched with admiration as Timothy received his congressional appointment to the Air Force Academy and was named valedictorian and a distinguished graduate of his senior class. I thought about my little boy who was determined to ride that bike…and I was a bit weepy…and very proud.
clocks
Posted in Family and friends on July 14, 2013| Leave a Comment »
A week ago my family and I spent the day driving home after visiting extended family 2-3 states away. We had a great time seeing relatives that we had not seen in far too long. As we traveled the 14 hours back home, we carried a unexpected treasure back to south Alabama. The treasure sits on our mantel now, chiming on the quarter hour.
My kids don’t esteem the new-to-us clock in the same way I do. And I must admit that hearing the chimes on a regular basis is taking some getting used to. We are easing in to it. But with every chime, I travel back in time to my grandparents’ home. The same chimes rang in their home for as long as I can remember. In fact, I have memories of standing in their Florida home in the mid 1960’s listening to the same chimes at the early age of three or four. Whenever I have heard Westminster chimes I am transported to my grandparents’ home.
My mom tells me that I would have first heard those chimes when my grandmother and grandfather lived in Tennessee, where they both grew up, got married, and raised a family consisting of my dad and my aunt. Then my grandparents moved to Florida, where my aunt would attend school to earn her doctorate. That’s the home where my first chime memories occurred.
Then my grandparents would move with their English professor daughter to Virginia so she could teach at a college there. When I was eight years old, I spent the first of many two week stays in the summer with my grandparents. I have many memories of that first summer visit with them. I enjoyed riding with my grandfather every day to pick up my aunt from the school where she taught, especially when we drove in his brown Barracuda convertible. I remember getting a stomach virus, which was not very fun when you are far away from home and your mother, who had always taken care of me when I was sick, but I survived just fine. My grandmother served the best Ginger Ale and saltine crackers that I had ever tasted and she played hours of card games with me sitting on the sofa in their basement den.
I remember those chimes of the clock, keeping perfect time.
The clock with the chimes that played in their home at that time sat on the mantel in their family room right above my granddaddy’s recliner, where he would watch the evening news faithfully every day. This was before CNN or any other news station that broadcast 24/7 existed. Watching the news was highly important to my grandfather and I learned that when the news broadcast came on the television, it was time for me to be quiet, so my grandfather could listen to every story
My grandmother and aunt usually sat at a nearby table situated by a large window that overlooked their back yard or my grandmother might be in the adjacent kitchen making dinner. And the clock kept time.
The clock that chimed all through my summer visits for many years and my grandparents’ daily lives stopped working somewhere along the way. For my grandparents 50th anniversary my parents and my aunt gave them a new clock that played the same chimes. It has a little engraved plate on the top of it noting the occasion.
I remember travelling with my parents and two sisters from Arkansas to Virginia to celebrate their anniversary. It was my freshman year of college. I remembering listening to the family stories that I had heard many times before. We took photos galore in the living room seated on the wooden furniture with the maroon velvet seats. That same furniture is now arranged in the front room of my house. And the chimes of the then new clock rang out on the quarter hour.
Now that clock sits on my mantel. My kids who are not accustomed to hearing the predictable ringing out of chimes. I think they will get used to it. But I notice that sometimes quarter hours will come and go with no chiming declaring the time and I realize that one of my kids has silenced the chimes for just a little while.
I think we will eventually adjust to this new audible addition. And in time, when my children are all grown and gone and their children come to visit their grandparents, they will come to know the marking of time at their grandparents’ home by the chimes from the mantel clock.
Snow Days
Posted in Family and friends, tagged winter on January 18, 2013| 2 Comments »
Today is NOT a snow day for my two youngest school-aged children in Alabama, but I’m thinking about snow days just the same.
Yesterday, my kids had high hopes that it might snow in the southeastern part of Alabama, where we reside. The weather forecasters were not predicting it, but other parts of our state were actually having the winter precipitation fall on their landscapes and my kids dreamed that it might happen at their house too.
It was cold and the sky was filled with the gray clouds that might contain snow…and it was cold. Did I mention that it was cold? And it was windy with a bone-chilling wind.
When my husband and I picked up our youngest from school, where he stood in carline wearing his uniform khaki shorts (yes, my kids wear shorts to school in January because we live in south Alabama) with his P.E. athletic shorts on below his uniform shorts. I use the preposition “below” because that is where the athletic shorts were…around his legs (not his waist) below his uniform shorts, covering as much of his otherwise exposed legs as they could.
When he climbed into the back seat of our vehicle, I asked, “A bit cold today?”
“Yes,” he replied.
I asked him if he thought it was cold outside a second time, to emphasize the parental point that I was preparing to make, that when he had walked out the door seven hours earlier, that his momma (me) had advised him that it would be cold throughout the day. That the chilly 40-something degree temperature that had greeted us that morning was only going to drop throughout the day.
He understood my meaning and then asked if we could make hot chocolate when we got home.
“Of course,” I said. “It is the perfect kind of day for hot chocolate.”
So we made hot chocolate when we got home and even started a fire in the fireplace.
My 16-year-old arrived home from soccer conditioning (running, NOT practicing) a while later.
I asked him if he had worn the Northface-type jacket that he had on, when he was running, knowing that if he had it would need a washing immediately.
“Of course not,” he answered.
“Then what jacket did you wear because I don’t see you sweat jacket,” I asked.
“I just wore my t-shirt and shorts,” he replied. “And it was cold,” he added.
I made him repeat the “And it was cold,” part and then reminded him that I had issued the motherly warning about cold and windy weather as he too had left for school earlier in the day.
I felt good that I had been validated as a mom who usually checks the weather for the day so that I can give weather advisories that are never heeded by my children.
And after I felt validated as a conscientious parent, I joined in the impossible dream that my 16-year-old voiced, “I hope it snows. I hope we have a snow-day tomorrow.”
I knew that the weather forecast was for cold dry air to follow the windy-cold day we were having…that the clouds that held any remnants of winter precipitation hopes would be blowing out of our area during the nighttime hours…still I dreamed with them and pretended that it might could happen.
I grew up in the Ozark Mountains of Northwest Arkansas and we did see winter weather that dropped snow on our Ozark hills. We did have snow days…and I loved them.
I loved being snowed in with school being cancelled and piling on layer after layer of winter clothes to go outside and sled or build a snowman only to come in short time later and have to take off layer after layer of wet-from-playing-in-snow clothing.
I loved the quiet of a new snow that blanketed the country setting where my family lived. I loved making boot-prints in the snow and then trying to retrace them exactly so that it looked as if you had traveled in one direction and didn’t return. I loved looking at the frozen pond in the pasture next to our property and watching snow gather on it.
I have lots of memories of snow days. My children only have one memory of snow collecting in a few inches and covering our south Alabama property. But it was a grand day! We had all donned layers of what winter clothing we had and sojourned in our winter wonderland for most of the day. We built snowpeople and my kids sledded down the little hill in our yard with their boogie boards usually reserved for use at the beach or in the swimming pool.
And so we dream…my kids and I…of miracle snow days. And we hope that maybe, just maybe, we will have another wonderfully memorable snow day in the winter months left to come.
Conversations…just the guys and me
Posted in Family and friends on October 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »
It’s been almost two months since child number 2, Daughter, moved into her college dorm. I still miss her. I’m not mourning her being gone…she is doing well and that pleases me greatly…I’m HAPPY for her…I’m just marking some of the differences there are in life at home now…now that it’s just me and Bryan Darling and our three youngest sons. It’s different. It’s not bad different and it’s not good different…it’s just different and I am trying to embrace it because it’s a special season…just like every season.
Child number 3 is 17, child number 4 is 15 and child number 5 is 11. They make life interesting. They make life fun.
Up until the last two months, I’ve had another female in the house with me…well for 18+ years. Now, I’m doing the female thing solo in a house full of testosterone and…it’s…well…different.
Conversations at the dinner table are different…more “guy” talk…and more “guy” noises…that make my guys laugh and speak “guy” talk about “guy” noises…then they blame it all on me and laugh about it. They laugh about it a lot.
Conversations in the car are different too. The other day all three guys were riding to town with their dad and me. Here is a sample of their conversation (I will try to relay it accurately…I may embellish just a bit…but not much).
One son: “My new goal in life is to be banned from a country.”
Other son: “Yeah, that would be great. But which country should we get banned from?”
First son: “Let’s get banned from a small country in Europe.”
Other son: (Names several countries and then…) “What aboutSwitzerland?”
Their Father: “No, you don’t want to get banned fromSwitzerland.”
Their Mother: (thinking to myself) “Is this a real conversation?” (then speaking out loud to husband) “What do you mean they don’t want to get banned from Switzerland? I don’t want my sons getting banned from ANY country!”
Sons continue to discuss with their father the pros and cons of getting banned from various countries…mother looks out the car window.
This is the kind of “different” that I’m talking about. That evening we were going to watch a movie. Because I had watched 72 hours of football, which I like by the way…but there can be TOO MUCH! I looked through our movies and saw “Ramona and Beezus.” I love “Ramona and Beezus!” I grabbed it from the movie cabinet and skipped and twirled through the house announcing our movie choice in a sing-songy high-pitched voice.
Some of my guys were ok with my choice…some were not…we watched “Thor.”
What is wrong with this picture? There is nothing “wrong” with the picture…it’s just a different picture than I’ve been accustomed to.
I can’t ever foresee myself skipping and twirling through our house announcing to anybody that “Thor” is the movie choice for the evening in a sing-songy voice…it’s not going to happen (I do really like “Captain America” though).
I definitely DO see myself continuing to laugh with my guys through their conversations and their kidding of their mom about everything under the sun…and I do mean “everything.” AND I will continue to embrace this very special season with these guys whom I love so much.
(Even as I write this, there is a really “guy” conversation coming from the next room where the three brothers are engaged in a video “Star Wars” battle…gotta love it!
The woman and her daughter
Posted in Family and friends on September 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »
I have a pink piece of cardstock with a large stylishly drawn heart on it, that sits on my bedroom dresser. Below the heart are the words, “Woman, you are a good mom. I like you.” It was my Mother’s Day gift this past year from my daughter…child number 2. She was 19 when she made this picture for me. It makes me smile a lot and sometimes laugh out loud when I see it.
My daughter affectionately calls me, “Woman.” She told me that was what Jesus called his mother, so that should make it all right (seeJohn 2:4). I don’t mind her calling me “woman”…I rather like it…because it is a term of endearment…a strange term of endearment…but a term of endearment all the same.
My other children don’t call me “Woman.” They call me names such as “Mom,” “Momma,” “Mother,” “Mommy,” etc. Daughter gets a little miffed if one of her brothers calls me, “Woman.”
“Hey,” she will say to the transgressing brother, “That’s what I call her.”
That’s usually the end of the conversation and the bothersome brother trying to infringe upon her affectionate name for me will go back to calling me, “Mom.”
Child number 2 is our only daughter this side of heaven. We have a wonderful relationship…so I think as the mom…or should I say, the “woman.” We have always been close; it’s been that way since she has been in the world. We seem to understand each other. We enjoy one another…though she says I’m weird, but, I am comfortable with my weirdness, so that’s ok.
Tomorrow, “daughter” turns 20. 20-years-old…really?! So this evening I’m remembering details from a Thursday evening 20 years ago. It would turn into a frightening night with me requiring an emergency Cesarean to see “daughter” safely into the world. I remember her daddy’s first words to me when I awoke in the recovery room, “She has hair and she is beautiful.”
I had been concerned that our baby girl might be bald like her brother before her for the first year of life. When I met her face to face I had to agree with her daddy, she was beautiful…and she was ours.
“Daughter” has taught me so much in her 20 years. I am blessed to know her; to be close to her. She inspires me with her perseverance and acceptance of life’s difficulties…they don’t get her down…she just works all the harder to achieve.
Tomorrow, I will go see “daughter” and take her to lunch and I’m sure we’ll laugh just a little bit and she will probably call me, “Woman,” at some point during the day and I will smile on the inside and maybe on the outside too.
pieces and ponderings 