Friday celebrates another year for Mom, born in the heat of summer, but as cool a customer as there is.
Her unappreciative kids were often aghast at the horrors of her pot roast, realizing only after years of dorm and other real world food that it was actually so tasty and succulent that you could cut it with a fork and it would melt in your mouth. And not knowing that she spared us the true horror of liver that Grandma indoctrinated her with in youth.
She quietly accepted that her boys mostly ignored music for sports. And that Dad once had Mom go on ahead by herself to Jack's graduation, that he could catch up after the ball game was over. And the long hours that Dad put in away from home, first a train ride away in Chicago, later in the offices, gyms and ball fields of the high school. In fact, she embraced it - her waiting headstone reads "Mom - Fan" beside the old man's "Dad - Coach". And if her purchasing patterns after Dad's passing are any indication, she more than tolerated the old heater/AC that was tolerable to Dad.
She supported and suffered for Dad for 18 months through his sickness and increasing non-communicativeness. She did the same at the bedside of Grandma, and for now-departed friends. She maintains the big old house beyond her needs, patiently waiting for the market to rebound. She concedes and abides by the body's painful demands of older age with a light heart. And she still gives smiling bear hugs at every hello and goodbye.
Whatever success and peace may come from my nature to accept of others' personal beliefs, circumstances, and lifestyles... I owe to Mom. And of course she played a fair role in everything else I've enjoyed in life too. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment