Gaining A New Perspective on Mother’s Day
By Noel Smith – [email protected]
This is the first year I will not have a mother to send flowers and a card to on Mother’s Day. She is now gone having left us last September just missing her 95th birthday by less than two weeks. She is gone, but not forgotten.
Memories come flooding back at the most unexpected times. I was in the shower at the gym the other day washing my hair. I had forgotten the plastic brush I normally use and started scrubbing my head using the tips of my fingers and my fingernails. Suddenly I remembered when I was very young, that was the same feeling when my mother washed my hair as she gave me my Saturday night bath or when trying to keep ahead of the dirt and grime after a day of my playing outside.
Other memories quickly followed. The feeling of responsibility when my mother assigned me the task of drying and putting away the silverware, or that of helping her hang up the clothes in the backyard by taking the wet clothes out of the laundry basket and handing them to her.
Or taking them from her when they were dry and putting them into the basket without dropping them or letting them touch the ground. (The first project I made in wood shop was a Laundry Fork for my mom.)
I remembered the look of happiness on my mothers face when our family was able to purchase a washing machine that in addition to the wash tub, also had a spinning tub on the side to take the water out of the wash before hanging it up to dry. This meant we didn’t have to wring out the wash by hand or run it through the wringer that was powered by a long handle with my mother or me on the other end.
There were memories of potato pancakes (made of leftover mashed potatoes) or fried oatmeal (made of leftover oatmeal cereal), the endless number and varieties of casseroles (chipped beef, tuna, asparagus, green bean, etc.) and pork chops served with white gravy over potatoes all provided to a family that gathered together for dinner each night.
My mother not only served her family, she and her family served their country. Mom had a husband that served in WWII, a son and granddaughter that served in the cold war, a son that served in the Peace Corps, a daughter that counseled women in prison, a grandson that served in the Gulf War and now a great grandson that is currently serving in the Mideast. My mother also served in the cold war and in the space race working in the Aerospace industry. Mom helped build planes for the U.S. Air Force and the Navy, then she built radar systems for NASA that helped land men on the moon and the Viking Lander on Mars.
My mother lived in the same house for over 50 years and went to the same church for all of that time. The last years of her life were difficult but she never complained. She took care of a sister ravaged by a stroke by moving her from Monterey to a care facility near her. Finally mom found herself the last of the five girls that had been her generation. She took loving and constant care of a husband that suffered greatly during his last year by making sure that he would be at home and with her when he died. Then she had a stroke that paralyzed her right side. But with the help of her family she managed to stay in her own home until the last six months of her life.
Mom is gone, all the things she and my dad saved and stored are gone or scattered. My Mother’s Day flowers and card have nowhere to go. But I still have the memories of those fingers vigorously scrubbing my hair and there is even a voice that I hear, the last words she ever said to me, “I love you too son.”