Happy Mother's Day (and a great link)

It is indicative of my mother’s personality that I searched my entire computer and couldn’t find a single picture of her. How sad is that? She is forever serving behind the scenes. My mother’s day goal? Get a photo of my mother! Since there are no snapshots of her, here are a few, taken with words …

Scent is my strongest memory, and my mom’s was heaven. The soft dip of her skin right above her collarbone seemed to be the origin of this mom-scent, and to lay my head on her chest gave me the perfect position to close my eyes and breathe it in. It was safety, warmth, love all at once.  It was everything all ok.

We were in Molalla Thriftway when the thought bubbled up in my mind and spilled out my mouth, the way thoughts do with kids.  I was sitting in the front part of the cart, dangling my legs.  Brach’s candy to my right, donuts to my left, we  just passed the bacon–”Mommy, you should bottle up your smell and sell it to everyone because it’s the best smell in the world.”  She smiled and kissed me.  My heart soared.

I loved my mom.  I adored her. She was the definition of beauty to me.  Her fingernails were so long, so hard and thick!   But she had a bad habit of picking at her hangnails, which I do now, and wholeheartedly blame her for, among other things, most of which have to do with my ankles.  But of course now I am sympathetic to how irritating it must have been to have a little girl constantly following her around and incessantly  investigating her body and asking embarrassingly candid questions.  I very clearly remember asking my mom why  her thighs made funny dimples when she sat down.  Oh good grief; I’m never letting Heidi see my bare thighs.  And I thought it was so strange that she always had slivers sticking out of her legs–I was convinced she must have spent our naptimes crawling around on the cedar deck.

She always played praise music.  My dad played Elvis and sometimes I would cry at night because I was convinced that my dad would go to hell because he listened to Elvis.  When my mom finally coaxed this admittance out of me she set my poor theologically-confused self straight and I could sleep again at night.

She was eternally patient with these night crying spells of mine.  Often I would cry because I missed my Grandpa Zyp–whom I had never met.  I thought of him often, wondered what he was like, wished I had known him before he’d died in 1976.  He seemed so real to me I missed him terribly.  She would sit on the edge of my bed, as though not a thing in the world were bidding for her time, and listen to me explain again that I missed him, and could she tell me again how funny he was and how he would have loved me.

She listened again, countless nights, as I cried because I could not understand eternity.  This lasted a long time. Somehow not being able to comprehend eternity was seriously troubling to my little soul.  I’d read and dream of heaven, wanting to be excited about the prospects of glory, but paralyzed by the fear of not understanding what eternity could possibly be like.  Forever and then what?  She’d listen, smile, pray with me.

I remember being proud as a peacock that my mom never left me with a babysitter. Other kids got left with babysitters all the time. Not me.  They took us with them everywhere.  I vividly remember mom and dad getting criticized for taking us with them on a romantic excursion that they’d been given by the church.  We all stayed at a  Bed & Breakfast near Mount Hood, and etched forever in my memory were the mornings Kris and I watched morning cartoons while stretched out on the lace and floral linens of the fancy beds.  Knowing that they’d been criticized for it made me all the prouder that they took us with them.  They’d chosen us!  I knew they loved us more than most parents loved their kids.  That was the secret I tucked in my  heart–I was so loved.

Mom’s discipline was effective because she’d won our hearts.  When we were naughty–let me rephrase that, my brother was never naughty–when I was naughty, she let me know it broke her heart.  She was firm, consistent, letting me bear the brunt of the consequences, but somehow I was so convinced of her love for me that it almost seemed like being naughty was hurting her personally–the one thing I’d never want to do.  I’m still not sure how she did it, but I pray, often, that God will enable me to do the same.

–

And now, my mom is friend to me, Oma to my children, and still my constant source of wisdom, confidence, love.  There is  no other woman on earth to whom I’d rather go for a listening ear, wise council, godly perspective.  In her presence I am me–without guard or guise.

And she has quickly won the hearts of my children as well.  Oma is magic to them.  Reading stories, teaching words, weaving tales.  She educates with every breath.  When I am blinded by behavior she somehow always sees the heart.

Thank you, Mom, for the years of sitting on my bed at night, listening.  Thank you for letting me smell that special spot on your neck, and for taking me on that romantic excursion that should have been for you and Dad.  I don’t know why it mattered so much, but from that point on I knew nothing much could go wrong.  Thank you for giving me the gift of security–the secret of knowing you loved us more than we could probably even imagine.

Happy Mother’s Day. And a Mother’s Day gift to all of you still in the thick of mothering little ones, some fabulous tidbits from beautiful Ann here.

{original post May 2010}