Mother of My Children's Mother
by Cherie Logan

My mother is a beautiful woman.  Growing up, I always thought that she was so young and beautiful compared to my friends’ mothers.  Elegant.  Beautiful.  Gentle.  Perhaps all children see their mothers as heavenly gifts.  I certainly did.  Why we sometimes rebel against and spurn such priceless gifts remains a mystery and a story for another day.  Today is for speaking of love, gratitude and sparkling moments of joy.

I don’t remember my mother holding me when I was a tiny baby.  I don’t remember her cuddling me, whispering to me or rocking me.  I don’t remember her walking me, smiling at me or crying over me as I kept her awake in the night.  I don’t remember and yet somewhere deep within me lies those very undeniable memories.  You see, I have my own children now and I have done all those things many, many times.  Somewhere, something whispers that my mother loved and cared for me just as I love and care for my little ones.  Just as they will never remember…but will never forget.

I do remember sitting in the bathroom and watching my mother get ready for work.  I remember her teasing her hair and looking so silly.  I remember talking constantly while she put on her makeup.  I remember helping her make her bed while I still talked.  I remember her coming home and following her to the same bathroom, still talking, while she changed from working mom to home mom.  I don’t remember much of the conversation but occasionally there was the little plea for privacy interrupting my steady stream of monologue.

Mother loved to work in her garden.  She always had roses and they always needed attention.  She would trim them, water them, pick them and ask my help.  But gardens have bugs and bugs and more bugs and I don’t get along too well with bugs.  When mother would trim her roses, I would follow behind and put the trimmings into the trash.  I would carefully reach down and pick up the thorny stalk between my thumb and two fingers, gingerly putting the stalks into the sacks.  Sometimes I would have to pick lemons from our prolific mini-tree.  I would look very carefully, checking all around each fruit to be sure no spider was going to pounce on me.  My country-raised mother must have wondered how she ever got such a prissy daughter, the same daughter who now thrives in country, still avoiding the bugs.

A rare treat was the times when Mother would read to us.  We would lay across my bed as she read Black Beauty, Bambi and Beautiful Joe.  We cried together in the sad parts and we enjoyed the quiet moments reading brought.  Because of my mother, I read to my children.  Sometimes I read short books written for toddlers.  Even the older children gather around to hear the stories they heard when they were young.  Sometimes I read novels and the older ones listen as the younger ones sneak in just to be a part of the experience.  Sometimes we listen together to books on tapes.  Little do my children realize that these precious moments are theirs because of their grandmother and probably because of her parents and their parents as well.  An endless circle of love and treasured moments.

Once mother was watching a scary movie.  Our house was dark and quiet as we were asleep in our beds.  She came and woke me up to keep her company as the original, The Haunting of Hill House, crept across the airways and into our imagination.  Sometimes we would go to the drive-in theater to see something or other.  We always hoped to get there early enough to play on the swings at the front of the movie lot.  As it got dark, my heart would pound with anxiety as I weaved between the cars, hoping I would not get lost.  Once in the safety of the car we were eager for the popcorn and then for the bathroom.  I would manage to stay awake through both movies and then fall asleep on the ride home.  Mother always suspected that I fell asleep on purpose just so I could be carried into the house.  I assured her that I didn’t…really…just as my own little children assure me that they really are asleep only one minute before the long walk from the couch to the bedroom.  Funny how after being carried into bed they manage to wake long enough to walk back out into the living room for one more good night kiss.

Good night kisses, drinks of water, trips to the bathroom, Good night, I love you, don’t let the bed bugs bite.  In California there are no bed bugs but the routines of nighttime brought comfort and peace as I drifted into sleep.  The routines are a bit different with my own little angels but consistent nonetheless.  Good night kisses, drinks of water, trips to the bathroom, Good night, I love you…universal messages of have a peaceful sleep and tomorrow will arrive on schedule.

I knew my mother was young but I never realized how young until I became an old mother.  I was born just before my mother turned twenty and her last baby was born barely before she turned twenty-two.  My first was born when I was twenty-two and my tenth when I was forty-one.  While I didn’t think I was young at twenty-two, now that I’m in my forties I am awed at my mother’s courage to raise me and always appear so confident.  Children like confident parents, it gives stability to their world.  Knowing that children are so much alike in any given situation, I have found that parents are also very much alike.  Those moments that cause me worry and grief and insecurity must have done the same for my young mother and yet my world was secure as I was never really aware of her inner battles.  Those inevitable battles brought on simply by learning how to be a mother.

Sacrifices are a given in mothering.  Mine certainly had her share.  I wanted to play the piano.  Mother had to take me to lessons.  Lessons that had to be paid for.  Mother had to listen to me play the same thing over and over.  If it had been an entire song that might have been acceptable but it wasn’t.  Oh no.  I played The 1812 Overture half way through every day, all day, for years.  It was loud, emotional, louder still, and played to that imperfect moment when I simply started all over again.  Sacrifices.  I remember those days now that my 8th and 9th children are starting piano lessons.  A never ending symphony of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star fills the house.  Something else from their grandmother.  She never complained, criticized or was embarrassed by my playing and I find I thrill at my children’s talents and interests because that is what mothers do.

Mother often took us out to dinner.  No matter how often, it was always wonderful.  Dinner out with Mom was something to be treasured.  For a couple of hours we had each other’s attention with little distraction.  For a short while we were nearly peers, talking, laughing and sharing the moments.  Breakfast out was something else though.  Breakfast with her daughter must have caused my mother a bit of concern as I abhorred breakfast food.  We would go to Denny’s and I would order a hamburger instead of something with eggs.  But mother allowed my odd quirk and many other oddities as well.  I find that I am tolerant of my own children’s individual strangeness, how silly of them to actually like eggs!

We went to Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm.  We went to the San Diego Zoo and Sea World.  We went to the yearly fair and once we saw the Harlem Globetrotters while another time we saw the Ice Capades.  The Lippizan Stallions were wonderful and the jumping events in the rodeos were my favorites.  Vacations to Oregon, to Arizona for a horse ride and once to Hawaii were undoubtedly expensive and undeniably priceless.  These were special occasions and done infrequently.  Yet they seem to have been done a lot.  I hear my children say, “The park we always went to….” and  “We went to the zoo all of the time when we lived in San Diego.”  I know that those things didn’t happen as often as the children seem to believe and yet like my own memories, they were events larger than life and so easily fill life’s memories.

All the memories of all the moments of my childhood are colored by my beautiful mother.  The laughter, the tears, the guilt and the joy of that time of my life centers around her place in my existence.  And yet it is today’s memories that are deepest in my heart.  My relationship with my mother now that we are both adults, now that I am also a mother with both little and grown children, and now that I can feel and understand her I find that I cherish her more every day of my life.  I am proud of her, grateful for her and feel her love reaching out in every difficult moment that comes my way.  As a child I adored and love my mother.  Without her there would have been no life, no living.  As an adult I love and honor her.  Without her the difficult moments in life would be more hopeless and the joyful events would be tinged with a longing for her laughter.

I never imagined as a child that she would become my most cherished friend.  My relationship with my mother has once again taught me how to be the mother of an adult child.  As my oldest child moves into life on her own I find that I emulate my mother, again.  I love my daughter, support her, delight in her and would give all I have to keep her safe and joyful.  Sacrifice and love and friendship and laughter.  The circle continues.