We have many photos of my father alone or standing with me and my sister during vacations across the US. Mom would gather us in and snap picture after picture with the camera that perpetually hung around her neck. It was a fight to wrestle it away and get even one picture of her and my father on any given trip. I’m not sure I have any pictures of her alone. But the fewer photos and references to her in my writing do not mean I miss or love her less than my father. It’s like the state of motherhood: mom is home. We live there, but we see life by looking out the windows. I miss her terribly and, like my father, I pray for her all the time.

Vernacular of Parenthood

I call her mom, my mom, which I think is odd because I always called my father, well… my father. Unless I was speaking to him and then it was dad (or sometimes daaaAAAaaaaaad). She was usually only mother in the context of my father. For example: “I will ask my mother and father.” I don’t know why this is. Though when I’m talking with Midi about Stuart I say, “Go ask your father” or rather “ask your FathORR”

Family

I wanted to write a bit about her because it will be her birthday soon. Even though her own mother was no great example, she was a wonderful mom. She grew up in the 40s and 50s, but it might as well have been the 30s because the rural area where they lived was chronically impoverished. Once, her parents left her alone to take care of the farm while they looked for work in the city. She and her sister were still kids, but that’s just how people did things back then, I guess. It was either that or lose the farm. She loved art and showed great promise as a painter, but turned down a scholarship to study art in Europe in order to get married to her high school sweetheart.

She loved kids and had three boys and two girls with her first husband. She later remarried my father and had my sister and I. Not long after we were born, her oldest children started getting married and having children of their own and she was blessed with many grandchildren, which were her great joy.

A Creative Heart

She never stopped being creative though. She poured, fired, and painted ceramics and taught others. She painted in acrylics, made stained glass, quilted, and even sewed our clothes growing up. This honestly led to some difficult moments at school due to the questionable choices of fabric she pulled from the bargain bin at the craft store. But later in life, I appreciated it and I wouldn’t trade those crazy calico dresses for all the clothes in the mall. She even sewed my wedding dress and the bridesmaids’ dresses! She loved going to museums and we spent many hours looking at the stained glass in art museums and carved jade, gemstones, and artifacts at natural history museums across the US. We moved constantly as my father worked to advance his career and provide for us, but no matter where we went she made that new place home. Even in houses we rented, she always planted a beautiful garden.

She was also the first person I wrote poetry for and patiently listened to all the terrible angsty poems I churned out as a teenager. Worry not Reader, I will not subject you to these!

Another reason I’m thinking about mom and motherhood is my daughter’s birthday is also very soon. I’m sitting here writing this in the early hours of the morning and remembering how, 17 years ago I was in the hospital, afraid but excited to meet her. My mom was in the same hospital but she couldn’t be there with me because she was struggling through her own medical battles. I know that was really hard for her. I missed her then. I miss her now.

The hospital wasn’t a Catholic Hospital I think. I never noticed any crucifixes there and I remember being shocked to see them when we moved to this area and I started going to Franciscans. At that time, I would have called myself pagan, though it brought me no comfort. Now I would offer the pain up to Jesus. I would think about Mary and ask her to pray for me. I would have researched saints associated with childbirth like Saint Anne. Even before going into labor, when visiting my mom in the hospital, I could have asked about her faith growing up and why she stopped going to church.

I feel like this gift of faith is a bright light that illuminates everything on the path ahead. There is nothing before me that the light doesn’t touch. But also, when I turn and look back, I see things differently because of this light.