The Three Most Important Lessons My Mother Taught Me

It’s important to learn how to take care of yourself. Mom made sure that I knew how to cook, clean, and sew.  From the time I was nine until I was sixteen, I was in 4-H where I learned how to boil an egg, sew a skirt, and arrange flowers.  By the time I was in high school, I was an accomplished seamstress.  But I remember those first few projects–and what a pain in the ass I was about completing them.  When finishing my first sewing project, a purple flowered skirt that I still have up in the attic, I desperately wanted to hem it on the sewing machine because it was so much faster.  Mom insisted that I use a needle and thread and do a blind stitch.  I remember it took what seemed like forever, but in reality took maybe an hour in total.  Today I can blind stitch a hem in about ten minutes.  Because I participated in 4-H, I also learned other important skills such as public speaking and how to perform in front of an audience, which has served me well.  I often have to speak in front of people and as an English instructor, I have to be able to think under the pressure of my students’ scrutinizing eyes.

From an early age, mom made sure I did chores around the house.  In the summer, she’d leave lists of chores for me to complete–I hated that and usually waited until ten minutes before she pulled in the driveway to start doing them.  Once in a while I got busted for dusting around the knick-knacks on the end tables instead of removing them, dusting them, and then dusting the table.  She also made sure that I knew how to do my own laundry, which served me well when I went away to college and didn’t have her to do it for me anymore, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t save it up for her when I knew I was coming home for the weekend.

I didn’t do much cooking when I was home although I’d been cooking with my mom and grandma since I was two or three.  It was around this age that my mom was bragging to my grandma that mom and I had made cookies together, but I busted poor mom when I told grandma, ”Mom sliced them and I baked them.”  We did make cookies from scratch together too.  I still remember the gray and multicolored speckled melamine bowl and the wooden spoon we used to use to mix the cookies together.  I still enjoy cooking and think I’m a fairly good cook in my own right.

Sometimes you have to be your husband’s hero. Young girls are conditioned by Disney that some day their prince will come and be their hero and the girls will worship their princes forever.  My dad was my hero.  He was larger than life to me when I was a little girl both physically and emotionally.  He was a physically strong man and liked to put up a tough exterior.  However, as a Vietnam vet he was often bested by post traumatic stress disorder, and especially in his later years, he needed a lot of care.  Though I know some days she was tired, frustrated, and angry, Mom was there for him every step of the way.  She took care of him when he needed it the most and never turned away in his weakest moments.  She was strong for him–which leads me to the most important lesson I learned from my mom.

Know when it’s time to let go. We lost my dad two years go from complications from pneumonia.  He was ill for several months and was in and out of the hospital.  Mom never left his side.  She slept in the hospital waiting room and bathed in the sink in the hospital bathroom for weeks at a time.  But when his lungs were so ravaged from infection and emphysema that every breath was a fight, we made the decision to put him on a ventilator to try to give his body a rest and his lungs time to heal.  However, a week later when he showed no improvement and no signs of regaining consciousness, I wanted more tests run and was hanging on.  But mom knew, it was time to let him go.  Last night, my husband Matt and I were giving a PreCana talk to engaged couples about different adjustments they will have to make over the course of their married lives.  My final word on the subject was the lesson I learned from mom:  So many people at the end of their lives hang on for their spouses because they are afraid their spouses will be so crushed by their death that their lives will be ruined. Even though it will be the most difficult thing you’ll ever do, it will be the most unselfish.  Give your spouse the gift of letting go when it’s time.

Thanks, Mom.  I know you didn’t think I was paying attention when you were “teaching” me these lessons, but I was.  Happy Mother’s Day!

4 Comments

• 

  By Aunt D, May 8, 2011 @ 4:31 pm

  Some times, Mothers can learn from the children! Quite a tribute, full of truth. Love you both.

• 

  By glenna, May 8, 2011 @ 5:50 pm

  Thanks, AD. Love you too!

• 

  By Mom, May 9, 2011 @ 10:01 am

  You are so precious to me. Thank you for this wonderful gift — not only for Mothers Day but for every day. I am proud of you and I love you dearly. And I know Daddy has his arms around you and patting you on the back — job well done.

• 

  By Linda, May 10, 2011 @ 4:14 pm

  Thanks for sharing a very important lesson. The thought of letting someone go, is many times just more than a ‘child’ (no matter the age) can bear. How special your parents were. I told your Mother on more than one occasion that the one thing I liked most about your Dad what the way he loved her. And it was certainly a two way street. You had two wonderful teachers.

Other Links to this Post

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment