I can still see you standing at the sink, washing dishes by hand, and thinking myself clever to have figured out that the ever-present stains on the hips of your house clothes came from the thousands of handwipes there. Always too busy multitasking to remember where the dishtowel landed last. Cooking, cleaning, helping with homework, and stretching that coiled telephone cord across the kitchen, keeping up with dozens of friends who were likely doing the same things in their own kitchens. The cord seemed to be perpetually at running-kid-throat height and resulted in many a comical, feet-up Looney Tunes moment. Ah, childhood.
I still marvel, though, that with all your problem solving, I still get text photos of your foot when you try to pick up a Facetime call. But I also envy your life because I can’t think of two friends I’ve had the time (and mental space) to casually chat up on the phone in the last few months.
I remember being so annoyed during most of my childhood for the free labor we kids provided. It remains not funny that the answer to, “Why can’t we get a dishwasher?” was always, “Don’t need one, I have four of them.”
I would always have preferred to be watching afternoon reruns of Gilligan’s Island and Bugs Bunny rather than peeling potatoes or hanging clothes on the line outside. And what kid in her right mind would have been happy to give up a Saturday afternoon in the basement ironing, the only distraction a television that didn’t have a picture unless you banged on the screen to make the tubes light back up? I feel like scolding my younger self for not appreciating the peace of a single task in a quiet room and the simple sense of “doing for my family.”
I also recall a recent dinner gathering and the shock and awe of those who couldn’t believe I know how to do things like grow food and snake a drain. I can only wish that my son would sit by my side for hours today in idle fascination and random conversation while I make strawberry jelly from berries we picked ourselves, cut patterns for sundresses, or wallpaper the kitchen.
I remember being awakened in the middle of the night to take medicine and it didn’t occur to me that you must have set an alarm, without complaint, to wake yourself at 2am to make sure I didn’t miss a pill. I remember how hard I tried to please you, and how much I wanted you at every game, play, and piano recital, because I knew the praise was already forthcoming and I couldn’t wait to hear it. None of us thought to thank you for handing us your change every Sunday so we could all have something to put in the collection basket when it went by.
We made fun of your crazy hats and weird orange lipstick—even if it was the 70s. We laughed at your bad puns and intentional goofs to test our grammar and history facts. And the photos of the six of us in matching homemade tank tops at Kings Dominion (so you could see us in a crowd) would likely have been mildly viral in a later time. But even today, I make an effort to be funny or silly because your laughs are genuine, and you are easily filled with joy.
Here’s the thing, Nance. I am only now old enough to recognize the value and utter uniqueness of growing up with a mom who was raised with Depression-era values. I still save bread bag ties and mend my clothes. I often have a moment of guilty entitlement when I realize I filled up my whole grocery cart without adding up the prices in my head. I remember the dignity you always showed when you handed me items to take back to the shelves because we didn’t have enough money that day.
Perhaps neither of us realized it at the time, but I am so grateful for the self-reliance that came, via osmosis, through the chores and all the “mom’s little helper” times. I am happy to be a link in a thousand generations of folk wisdom that binds me to all those moms before us.
For my part, I’ll probably have to settle for sharing my AI search engine tricks over a Zoom call to help my son navigate the digital era and hope he might stop by for homemade fried chicken once in a while.
For everything we never thought was simply making me the mother that I am, Happy Mother’s Day.