Happy Mother's Day

I don’t think Mom thought of herself as a peacemaker, but she was one of those rare women who seemed content to remain neutral when trouble brewed. In fact, Mom was quite fond of saying, “Yours will be the moral victory.”

I would often come home from playing with the neighborhood kids full of self-righteous indignation over some perceived injustice. Mom would give her usual speech and admonish, “Yours will be the moral victory,” to which I would wail, “But why can’t I just haul off and smack him/her . . . just once?”

Mom never took sides.

Neighborhood kids will always bicker and snipe at one another, go home and tattle, hoping their parents will get involved and “make it right,” but Mom never did.

“There are no sides,” she would say. “You’ll be friends again soon enough.”

Of course she was right. Why stir the pot? Kids will argue and fight, but they can make up and be best of friends just as quickly. Adults, on the other hand, hold grudges for a long, long time.

Mom was smart that way. I often wonder how she would have survived in the backstabbing corporate world of today. It’s difficult to imagine. I can’t picture her being manipulative or playing games or trying to make her way to the top. It was not her style. But that is not to say Mom had a sheltered life. No, Mom’s life was filled with volunteering and working for others.

Mom was a Sunday School superintendent, a 4H community leader, a 4H project leader, was very involved in that very conservative national political party, a member of the county board of social services and served on any number of community committees.

In addition, all our meals were made from scratch – a TV dinner on a TV tray in the living room was a rare treat – and she sewed most of our clothes.

In fact, Mom taught my three sisters and I to sew. I think my sisters are fairly good at it. I am not. I have to confess, I was the one who carved “I hate sewing” into the case of our old Singer.  And, surprisingly enough, I am the one who inherited that old Singer from Mom when King and I were first married.

And I did try to use it. But after my first few attempts to make curtains for our new apartment(s) Mom decided it might be better if she simply took me shopping for material and made the curtains herself. If she was disappointed I can’t sew a straight seam, she never said anything.

It is sometimes difficult to remember that woman. The one who told me to take the high road. The one who made three-piece wool suits for her daughters. The one who could campaign with the best of them. It’s difficult to watch her as she struggles to find words or to watch as she panics because she knows she is supposed to remember the name of the person who just sent her a Mother’s Day card and can’t quite place who this person is.

But sometimes, not very often, but sometimes, a little bit of that smart, classy woman comes to the surface and she’ll tell me a story about when she was a child. Or she’ll help me get dinner ready and tell me her secret to great-tasting potato salad. And in those rare moments I can peak into those pale blue eyes and say to myself, “Oh, there you are. Thank you Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.”