Like My Mother...

I never wanted to be like my mother. Growing up, I thought she was strict, old fashioned, regimented, too old to really know what was going on in my life and certainly too old to know what was going on in the world. The very last thing I wanted to be was --- like my mother.

Today, as I started my day, I realized as I went about my routine I am exactly "like my mother."

Each day, first thing I do is have a cup of coffee and then breakfast. I'm not a big breakfast person and neither was she. Next, I make my bed, straighten each room in the house, get dressed and decide what I'll do with my time that day.

Since I don't work anymore I have the freedom to choose. It's a lovely freedom and one I never take for granted.

My mother did those exact same things every day of her life. Now, I do them too. In order. Very structured. Very orderly.

Most days, R and I have coffee and watch Good Morning America. Mother always checked out the news.

I can't sit and relax until I have all those little chores done. Mother couldn't either. Actually I rarely sit and relax and neither did she. If I am sitting I either fold clothes, makes lists of the things I need to do, or work on the computer. My mother usually mended. Her hands were always busy. Either in biscuit dough or pie crust, or washing dishes.

My mother was a hard worker, physically. I am too. (I don't mean digging ditches here!)

My mother and I were different in one area. She loved to garden and I do not. That is a big "DO NOT." She would rather work in the yard, cleaning, picking up sticks, planting flowers, carrying rail road ties one year with my step father to make a border for her flower bed, than to do anything else on earth. She loved to plant and harvest a vegetable garden. Always lots of plants, lots of weeding, lots of love. I've never even planted a tomato.

My mother loved the outdoors and I do too. She loved to WORK outdoors. I do not. To me the outdoors is meant for enjoyment, lazing around in a chaise lounge, or sitting on the front porch watching life saunter by on my country road, or reading the newspaper. Or sitting on the back deck in the evening watching the colorful array of birds and wild life skitter past. Often we see deer leaping across the fields.

Spring and summer are for sitting under a tree with a good book and a glass of sweet tea with a lemon slice, my feet propped either on my husband's lap or on the chair he has vacated.

All of her 87 years on this earth, my mother was devoted to her family.
My wish is that I can be at least a fraction of the good mother she was.

I'm sitting here remembering all the good things. How much fun we had together, talking laughing loving.

I'm hoping my children will remember some good things about me and who knows, maybe they'll turn out to be a little bit like me.

I imagine they will be.

But don't tell them I said that.

Any thoughts on this special topic?

Blessings to you and yours as we head for spring.