Mother’s Day Musings

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Home, motherhood, Mothers-Day

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, a holiday we are all supposed to send or give love and thoughts  to our Mothers.  Seeing I am a mother I like this idea! Hey, cards, a gift, dinner, I enjoy being remembered.  Or, maybe we aren’t remembered, it happens.  Children have different beliefs, priorities, lives filled to the brim with their own activities and possibly a  mother you simply know is there and the day passes by.  Your mother loves you, or she does not.  Chances are if she does you’re one of the ones more likely to forget the day, she is not going to disown you 🙂

I remembered my mother this Mother’s Day, likely for the last time, I sent her flowers. My conversation with her today while  I was looking in my dressing room mirror;  I don’t relish looking at myself and being reminded where I am on the timeline of life, I was paying attention to my reactions, my expressions responding to my mother’s happy observations outside her window (the bird feeders), I wanted to ‘see’ (literally)  my reactions to my mother’s softly spoken (weak) words, hear about the  flowers inside her house and who had visited yesterday. Her world is small these days but she has accepted that and does delight at the bloom of a hibiscus that opened today, blooming on a plant she told her caregiver to get rid of, it was ugly.  That too is my mother.  The plant seems to have survived, not everything escapes my mother!

Mother had a little boy and his uncle visit yesterday.  The uncle is a  young man she had worked with and he wanted to pay his respects, the little guy is his nephew, just a mite of a boy and not excited to visit an elderly, very sick woman, whom he didn’t know and in a strange house.  Mother had dripped soup on her blouse when eating and wasn’t certain she wanted anyone to see her in such a ‘mess’.  This too is my mother, you do not get dirty!  If you do you fix it!

After she remembered who her visitor was (please take off his hat so she could get a good look), she worked with dozens of young people her years at The Dogpatch, a Munising Michigan well known restaurant.  My mother enjoyed working with the ‘kids’ each one of the employees as they came and went;  it seems they all remember her and like to pay her visits, they did before she wasn’t well, so these are not sick calls.  The young people she worked with in her 60’s and 70’s gave her energy, kept her up with what was happening in Munising, she would say they kept her young.  And her steel like personality garnered her respect, her work ethic perfect,  and she can be great fun.  She worked when most people would have been more than happy to give it up; she worked because she liked the job, the people she worked with and being occupied was important to her. She was a working woman all of her life.   Being raised in the depression having extra money to set aside certainly didn’t make her unhappy!

Mother took a liking to the little boy who visited yesterday.  He is an endearing little guy and she wanted him to feel comfortable at her house, not wanting him to leave immediately, just as he arrived.  So my mother, the woman who allowed no one to touch anything under threat of who knows what (most likely nothing but a dirty look, I’ve not been ‘hit’ in my life) she was a firm woman, still is, don’t touch!  She encouraged this little guy to please touch, pick up, and enjoy or explore the multitudes of things she has in her home that give her pleasure.  What he enjoyed was a clear glass globe with birds flying around as it played a tune.

While I was busy listening, looking in my mirror I heard a different mother, not changed, people rarely change, but one that was appreciative of a little boy, wanted to make him comfortable in her world, even if she had spilled soup on her blouse.  The spilled soup could have been a door barred from entrance at one time.  Yesterday it didn’t really matter other than it crossed her mind.  What will become of the little boy seemed paramount on her mind and what a gentleman his uncle is.

It is mindful for us  to remember on days when cards are often mushy and don’t fit our situations,  don’t come close to our feelings or relationships, that there is good in almost all people.  find a blank card, write your own feelings and thoughts, most of us even if childhood was difficult can remember a good thought, a memory that was loving, kind and represented our mother in a good light.  We are here!  If nothing else we can offer a big thank you for a mother who cared for our needs, gave us life.  That is the gift our Mother’s have given us. And for that I am grateful 🙂

A Ride With Grandpa Joe

In my mind there were few things I learned to do that equaled the sheer pleasure of driving a car!  I learned to drive when I was young, fourteen as I recall.  I learned on country roads, places I couldn’t hurt anyone other than ruining my boyfriend at that times car!  And I was young to have a boyfriend but I was strong-willed young woman and there I was on my sixteenth birthday (and having passed drivers training in school) ready for my license.  Hooray!  I passed with flying colors.  Passing with flying colors in Munising Michigan isn’t saying much seeing there wasn’t even a street light, no merging highways, the hardest thing for me is I did need to learn driving ‘a stick shift’.  So at one time I could drive with the best of the guys, at least I thought so.  The good thing was my mother drove an automatic shift and so the family car was automatic.  The test would be a piece of cake!

I think the day I got my license I was off running errands or making up errands as soon as my mother got home from work.  The car was so freeing and fun to drive, a whole world opened up for me. My mother and dad’s car was never so clean once I could drive it!  I could hardly wait to buy my own!  Which I did within a very short time.

My parents were very free allowing me to use their car, and I was pretty useful driving off to the grocery store to buy something my mother had forgotten.  Of course each trip took far longer then it needed seeing I had to drive all the streets of Munising hoping I might see someone I knew to wave at, maybe even an ‘older’ boy.  One summer day my dad asked me if I’d take the car and  give his father,  Grandpa Joe a ride to the doctor’s office.  Grandma and grandpa lived in Shingleton, about 12 miles from Munising, a nice ride.   I would be able to show  grandpa how well, and fast I could drive, how grown up I was.

Can you imagine how comfortable he must have been?  I wasn’t a very big young woman, most likely 100 pounds wringing wet and I didn’t look old for my age.   Although I was chatty and I really did enjoy my grandpa.  He was I thought very ‘old-fashioned’, he didn’t drive, he didn’t write and I’m not certain he could read, he spoke English rather well, I think he preferred his native Croatian.   He walked everywhere he went, many miles through the woods to go hunting or fishing, he was a competent man. He had been a lumberjack earning his land by helping to log the forests of  his part of Upper Michigan.   He built his and grandma’s house, all the out buildings and an extra house to rent.  That included two out houses, one for the little house and a rather deluxe one with three openings and I do think I remember one was smaller for the children.  One of his out buildings was a work shop, from the time I was small I loved to go in there to see just what mysterious thing I might find or see.  He had all sorts of tools and sharpeners, warned to not go near the scythes because they were really very sharp.  He sharpened them on a grinding wheel and that was how the lawn got mowed.  It wasn’t cut until the daisies stopped blooming.  Grandma and grandpa’s house and property was one of my favorite places to spend time.  I believe my love of gardens started right there in Shingleton Michigan on grandma and grandpa Dolaski’s piece of America.

Back to our summer day and grandpa’s exciting ride with his grand-daughter, Trudy Lee.  I drove the top end of the speed limit all the way, passing cars if needed; I was out to impress grandpa.  I don’t think I did, but I felt special taking him to town for his appointment.  He was most likely very happy to reach the doctor’s office in one piece.

When I picked grandpa up  at home he was carrying a brown paper bag with him.  The time was late morning; I asked him what was in the bag.  Well, he was pretty sure he was going to miss lunch while he was waiting to see the doctor so he brought it with him.  I knew grandpa always planned ahead, usually anticipating anything that might happen but bring his lunch to the doctor was a new one and I knew better than to giggle on the outside like I was in the inside

We made it to the doctor’s office in record time, I assume that was because I felt the high-end of the speed limit was the proper  way  to drive.   We found a seat in the waiting room; I helped him get checked in and found us a place to sit, the office did have other patients waiting.  Grandpa must have decided either due to his stomach or his pocket watch it was time for his lunch.  He took out his ever-present pocket knife, opened his brown bag, cut a nice piece of onion, a chunk of bologna and began to eat.  I’m sure he offered me a bite and I can’t say I remember having any but I know I didn’t have any onion.  To someone else this may have been an embarrassing moment, for me it was not.  People knew one another in Munising, I’m certain everyone in the waiting room understood this was grandpa’s ‘way’ and I was smiling on the inside at how comfortable he was.  He had no false ‘airs’ about him, he was who he was all the time.   I was proud of him.

Our ride home was uneventful, I didn’t even know why he was seeing the doctor.  I expect it was serious otherwise he’d not have been there.  I must not have given the why much thought then seeing I remember being quite happy on my ride back ‘to town’.  I was ready for another adventure driving!