"...This morning I saw a family at Starbuck's, mom and dad (my age, maybe a bit younger) and their 3 grown children, 2 girls in their 20's, and a son maybe 16. It was obvious that this was a "meet up and hand off" sitch, ie. one of the daughter's friends showed up outside and everyone trooped out to meet him. The mother and father came back inside and I overheard the mother muttering to the father "...Zach. I don't know his last name. Just Zach." And the father's look of dismay and disbelief. In my mind i'm thinking about the number of times I didn't know "the last name" when you guys went out.
More importantly outside the store, the daughter leaving with "just Zach" and the brother are giving each other a goodbye hug and in that hug I see so much. It reminds me of the hug you guys shared this summer when we dropped Ali off, although the roles in today's event were reversed. Here the daughter was leaving, was excited about what the future held, but you could tell by the strength and duration of the hug how much she loved her brother and that she would miss him.
When they pulled apart and looked into each other's eyes, the brother was fighting back tears. I could see that there was substance there, and that the bonds were strong and that they would have a solid friendship in the years ahead, regardless of how geographically close they were. Just like you two.
So many of my friends who know you both and have spent time with you have said it's obvious how much you love each other and how deep and strong your connection is, and how it will sustain through the years. My friends also say that I did a good job of mothering you, and my loving you gave you both the ability to love each other so much.
Today would have been Mom's 87th birthday. The love is passed on, generation to generation, becoming stronger each time the baton is passed.
L, mImZ ..."
Even though it was late in France, Lina called me after she read this and gave me a verbal hug. Some of the things that I forgot to mention in the letter I was able to tell her in person. And some things occurred to me after we talked.
Hopefully we all learn from our mothers, and do a better job with our own children. It's hard to "do better" unless we can acknowledge the quite human flaws that our parents have. It's only by comparison that we can benchmark our desire for change. My mother was an "only" child (she had a much older step-brother) and I think that my mother and grandmother were highly connected, Mom wanting to be a dutiful "good" daughter, but also pushing back against the smothering that she probably felt. My grandmother, Ruth Turk, was very opinionated, stubborn, and strong. A true feminist, she travelled around the South as a young woman selling Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias at a time when almost all young women were married. She and my mother did the "come here, go away" tango with each other all their lives. Ruth and my father were always at loggerheads, competing for Mom's attention.
Mothering and growing up as a person are like working with pure fine silver. You anneal (soften) the metal in the flame and then you "work harden" (make stronger, bring it up out of the soft state) the silver with a hammer, working it against the anvil or the metal block. What did Mom learn from her mother? That every child is a unique individual, to be encouraged and cherished, and given freedom to learn and grow. I think that being an "only" drove Mom to create a big family. She gave all of the siblings the gift of each other.
Mom thoroughly enjoyed the role of grandmother. Her 12 year battle with various cancers almost spanned the births of the 10 grandchildren (2 per child.) Lina was the first, born in 1985. Mom was first diagnosed in 1988 and lost her battle in 2000.
Luminous / . . .from within
Lysa Lynn Schloesser ©2002
I imagine it was on an autumn day
much like this one.
When the crisp colors of the leaves
etched a pattern against the clear
sapphire blue Kansas sky
that she loved so much.
She told me later that she asked
the question that few are brave
enough to ask. On a day like today
she sat in her doctor's office,
like so many visits over the
last eleven years, when she
always attempted to be
blissfully ignorant of the facts.
I imagine that the most recent
failure of a long hoped for cure
sparked the question that must
have hovered In the air,
after so reluctantly leaving her lips:
"Will I live to see another Spring?"
For my mother, Spring was a time
of renewal and birth,
her favorite season. Living until
Spring meant that she would have
one more April birthday,
one more chance to see her
beloved garden in bloom and
one more chance to greet her
wintered-over goldfish
who rose each time to the
surface of her pond to greet her with waving fins.
She fought so long to hold onto life that
after a while none of imagined, really,
that she wouldn't keep on fighting.
I don't think her question was a
signal of surrender; no - more an
intimation of mortality. A recognition
that the wonderful dance of life
was drawing to a close.
Today, I saw a line of trees
laden with burgundy leaves and
on the inner branches, hot yellow
leaves glowed in sharp contrast.
That is how I imagine my mother
on that autumn day three years ago,
her outer shell dark and rich and
ready to fall, leaving her inner shining
golden core alive in all of us
she left behind.
Posted via email from lysastrata's posterous
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