When I wrote this back in '97, my Mom and Dad were still with us,
as was my own dear daughter, Melissa. It seems so long ago and at the
same time, like it was just yesterday.

With Mother's Day fast approaching I find myself thinking of my Mom and
about being a Mom and can see how so many aspects of everyday living are
generational as each daughter hands the lessons of her mother down to
her daughter. I mean, don't you find yourself saying the very words
your mother once said to you in some distant past? Don't you fold your
towels a certain way because that's the way Mom did it? Don't you look
in the mirror now and then and see that same look you saw on her face at
one time or another? Perhaps you have made a conscious effort to shun
your mother's ways because you never really liked her very much. But
every now and then, there she is anyway in what you say and what you do.

I was blessed with a GREAT Mom. She is 76 years old now and cannot see
hardly at all. She has been married 53 years this June and had nine children,
5 boys and 4 girls. My mother was and still is a creative, talented,
interesting person. She is quiet and shy and somewhat "set in her ways"
(but who really isn't?) Over the years I've had plenty of opportunity
to says thanks to my mother for everything she taught me, but I haven't
been so good at that. My mother doesn't like overt displays of affection
so it would not be easy to go up to and say everything I would like to.
I would say, Thanks Mom, for making me understand "YOUR life is what YOU
make it". It was the most important thing you ever told me. It has
helped a lot during the rough times. Thanks for giving me all those
brothers and sisters to love and to love me. Thanks for telling me "You
are NOT going out of the house looking like that!" Thanks for
teaching me how to sew - I started out with doll clothes, then
school clothes, then work clothes, then clothes for my little girl, and
back to doll clothes. Thanks for teaching me how to draw, and
crochet, and embroider, and paint. Thanks for showing me the pleasure
of reading, and handing me a book and saying "This is a really good
story". Thanks for teaching me to not wash red socks with white things.
Thanks for not pulling up those wild geraniums I transplanted from the
woods when I was a kid when you re-did the yard a few years ago. Thanks
for letting me come over and raid your pantry when I was single
and living in an apartment. Thanks for seeing to it we had all the
comforts of a good home, even though it was difficult in the early
years...I guess I could go on forever on this one.
Not too long ago I found myself telling my daughter "Your life is
what you make it." Is that what you call "the circle of life"?