Column: Something About Nothing

We just celebrated Mother’s Day. My mother has been gone for almost 10 years now. In all my years that my mother was alive I never missed a Mother’s Day with my mother. We might not have spent the entire day together, but we always shared a meal and some time together on that day.

I loved my mother. My mother and I did not always have an easy relationship. We had different personalities and it was hard at times to understand one another. Relationships with the people you love are not always easy. Through the ups and downs we loved one another, and Mother’s Day was a day to spend time together and rejoice in the day.

As one gets older we can reflect on the past relationships and see what we could not see when we were younger. My mother was very Polish. She was hard-headed, stubborn and hard-working. She loved her family, and she was a caretaker. My mother took care of me, my father, her mother and her brother.

If we were sick or her grandchildren were sick my mom was the one to have around. She always knew the best remedies and would tuck us into bed and feed us warm soup, liquids and see that we had enough covers or whatever we needed.

My children were lucky enough to have Grandma around at times when they were sick. She was much better at the TLC than I was.

As I sit and read to my grandchildren, I feel as if I have stepped into her shoes. I can see her sitting with my children on her lap, her gnarled fingers crooked from arthritis holding the book and patiently reading it to my children. Grandma always put in the right tones and had a smile on her face. She loved children and she loved her grandchildren dearly.

As I read to my grandchildren I feel her inside of me. I look down at my crooked hands starting to knot up with arthritis, and I see the legacy of generations passed down as I read the book. I have a hard time believing that so much time has passed and I am almost at the age of my mother as I read to my grandchildren. Where did the time go?

I have been told many times I am like my mother. Those words were not always meant as a compliment, but I take it as a compliment. Many of us spend our younger years trying hard not to be our mothers. We have seen what we like or don’t like and we don’t always want to follow in our mother’s footsteps.

I have heard teenagers tell their moms that they never want to be like them. Those teenagers grow up, and they find themselves repeating the same words to their children and using the same tender loving care and, yes, making some of the same mistakes they berated their mothers for.

As I have aged I want to take the best parts of my mother and be just like her. Yes, she was cantankerous at times, many times. But my mother had a stamina that put her on the roof of her house repairing her shingles at 90 years old. My mother always believed there was never anything she could not do if she put her mind to it. My mother didn’t always listen to other people (me), and sometimes she was right. She followed her own drummer.

At 90 years old my mother could mow her own lawn and lift objects that her 90-pound body should not have been able to lift. She tended her garden, took care of her grandchildren, loved her God and kept her body strong until her mind with Alzheimer’s could no longer support that body. I look back now at her strength and think of the legacy that she left me in her toughness. Yes, I want that strength and toughness.

Housekeeping was not my mom’s priority, and I didn’t understand that, but I do now that I am in my later years. Gardens and growing things and being outdoors were her priority. Her family was her priority. She had it right, and I had it wrong. I miss her every day. I wish I could tell her that I want to be just like her.

Wisdom comes with age. As my grandchildren sit on my lap and my gnarled fingers hold the story in my hands I hope the story that remains with them is the importance of love. I hope those gnarled hands and voice in story can impart the strength and love that is passed down from a mother, to a daughter or son. I hope those gnarled hands and voice in story can impart the strength and love that is passed down from a mom to her children and through those children to her grandchildren.

Hold your child, or your grandchild and feel the generations past sitting with you telling your story.

“The only thing you take with you when you’re gone is what you leave behind.” — John Allston

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send email to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net.