The Woman Who Started You...
...are you really giving her slippers?
The best thing I ever started was people.
Two daughters…Taylor and Tess. They’re colorful, creative, adult works in progress who still give me the biggest joy and the most maddening “what the actual fudge cake?!” moments.
The thing about starting people is that you really DON’T get to finish them. (I mean that in all the ways that come to mind.)
No other creation gets ripped from our control so cruelly, just when it starts taking shape and doing its own laundry. Starting two people was all I could manage.
My own mom started SIX whole people.
That’s a lot of starts. Especially when four of them are stinky boys who grew out of jeans every three months – and the tallest one grew to 6’7”, so thank goodness for the Sears Big & Tall section.
Here she is with her favorite first daughter.
I’m lucky that my sweet mama is still around to see what I’m going to be when I grow up. The anticipation is hard on both of us.
(She’s celebrating her 70th high school reunion in Cozad, Nebraska, this year. And I’m invited!)
So, if YOU are lucky enough to have your mom around for Mother’s Day, how are you playing it? What do you get/do for the woman who literally STARTED the mortal coil that YOU get to make magic with every day?
Slippers?
Flowers? Another robe? An afternoon…tutoring her on how to use the iPhone she’s had for 10 years (this is precisely what my mom asked for this year and now maybe she can FaceTime me from her high school reunion.)???
YES, to all these things. ALSO, IN ADDITION, just as you should always put a little money in a graduation card, how about putting a little creation from her creation in her Mother’s Day gift. You know, just like you did in first grade (she probably still has it.)
You don’t have to make a framable thingy like I did. Actually, just use your words.
Remind her that the thing she started is a work of art who knows how to send thank-you notes.
Don’t just IPhone it in. Take 10 minutes and tell her a thing or three:
Tell her she’s a good mom. (Use examples.)
Tell her you heard her when she wasn’t yelling. (Use examples.)
Tell her ‘thank you.’
And by ‘tell’ her, I mean write it down in a letter or maybe post it on Facebook. Let me demonstrate with a letter to my own amazing mom.
Dear Mom,
I know you had your hands full with six of us kids, a full-time job, and the rent wolf at the door. Still, you did a masterful job of making us all feel safe, loved and resilient. Today as I release my own two grown children, I know more than ever that you were a great mom to little kids, and you’re a great mom to grown-up people.
Whether you knew it or not, Mom, I heard most everything you said. Sometimes you weren’t talking directly to me, and sometimes you weren’t even talking. But I heard how to be a good person and how to make my dreams come true. You told me to do the right thing, to protect my spirit and to keep an open mind. You told me to make things, to take care of things and to fix things when they were broken. I thought about this recently when I fixed a toilet at my friend’s house. I don’t remember you teaching me how to fix a toilet, but I remember that broken toilets always got fixed when you got home from work. So even though you never said it, I heard “things break; you’re smart enough to fix them.”
I love how you still make things and how you still have the curiosity and confidence to discover new things. I love that you don’t keep score or go places you don’t want to go. I think it’s cool that you like interesting old things but that you know the difference between collecting and hoarding.
I’m having a great time in the skin you put me in, and I’ve got big plans for the year ahead. See what you started?
Happy Mother’s Day.
Love,
Becky
Kidding aside, letters are artful and therapeutic. So even if your mom is no longer with you, writing a thank-you letter can be a rich, creative exercise.
I realize that Mother’s Day was created by Hallmark to sell cards and chatychkes, but the stARTists at Hallmark would be happy to know you celebrated the stARTist who stARTed you by tapping into your stARTistic super powers.
!!!
p.s. I did a lot of mom wisdom stuff when I wrote and illustrated my first book, Do Your Laundry or You’ll Die Alone. It makes a fun graduation gift.
