Being in clover....

 I had to mow the lawn this morning.  The grass was not long - it has barely grown since I mowed last week.  In fact, I think I know Crayola's secret as to where they got the term "burnt orange."  They took a look at people's yards in July in Kansas City and that is the color they saw, which is what yards are starting to look like around here right now.

Except we are in Minnesota, and it is only June, and we are already having the hottest and driest summer I can  recall in years, which is just fine with me (although not so much the farmers I live around.  Especially the one I live with, who would like rain Right Now.)  Oh.  I digress.

Quiet Grace...

 This Sunday is Mother's Day, and this year I am especially mindful of how fortunate I am to still have my mother in this life.  At 94 (and a half, as she likes to joke) she recently reminded me, in her own words, "at this age any of us could go at any time."  Considering that she delivered this pithy assessment in the middle of her large garden while planting potatoes, it would be easy to forget the truth of that statement.  I giggled when she said it, but it is impossible right now to ignore that reality.  None of us are guaranteed tomorrow, but in your 90's, you are more fragile than you were when you were younger, and we would do well to remember that fact.

Our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers are a resource to call on, a treasure chest of memories and thoughts and feelings lived over a lifetime.  They have perspective that is impossible when we are young.  I have noticed, through this pandemic, that the elderly, although appropriately concerned, have not been overly worried.  They have done what was asked, as they always have.  They stayed home and stayed isolated, but carried on, hardly missing a beat.  That is a message to us, I think.  They have survived a lot more than a pandemic, and they know that this too shall pass.  I take that to heart, because of their lived experience.

                              

This Mother's Day, I will give my mom the best gift I can give to her - I will spend time with her.  She doesn't need more stuff.  She has accumulated a lifetime of things, and has more than anyone will ever want or need, really.  But because I am all too aware that her time is increasingly limited, I crave spending the time just hearing her memories and thoughts and feelings.

My mom has lived in her hometown pretty much her entire life.  She still lives on the farm where she was born.  She still has a few of her earliest friends to reminisce with.  She is a person of simple needs, quiet, shy and unassuming.  She loves her family, her yard, and puts God first.  But that doesn't mean she is a simple person.  She has traveled and experienced and lived a long and productive life.  At 94, she has more to offer than ever.  And her experiences aren't over, because she continues to live a full and active life.

Mom is not someone that asks a lot of us.  She is a strong and independent woman, someone who has shown us what real woman power looks like.  She has overcome so much in her life, with so much grace and no resentment.  I cannot imagine a better role model for a young person who wants to know how to live their best life.

Mom, I love you.  I value you.  I cherish you.  I cannot imagine my life with any other mom, because you were simply the best mom I could have asked for.

I know I speak for the whole family when I say Happy Mother's Day.  Thank you for being you.  <3

Sugar and spice are nice, but so is brave and outspoken and loyal and...

My wonderful daughter is 29 years old today.  From the moment she made herself known in the summer of 1991 (I have never been so miserable for the entire 7.5 months she was in utero and I still have to fight the urge to feel sorry when I hear someone is pregnant and just congratulate them instead of giving them my sympathy, although the outcome is worth it!) until this day, she has brought the same character traits to her life journey that made her the survivor she is.

I hadn't planned on a second child.  Oh, I wanted one, wished for one, tried for one.  But after a series of miscarriages, I had given up and was grateful for the one child I did have.  I knew I was missing out, but you can't really miss what you have never had, so I didn't understand what I was missing, and I was okay with it all.

Then she showed up.  And I realized that my daughter was going to have to be strong and brave and bold and fierce, from the moment of her premature birth.  And I also realized pretty quickly that she was totally up to the job, and a spunky survivor, just like another woman I know and admire so much, my mother.

Listening...

On this day 48 years ago, we buried my father.  It was a bitterly cold, windy day, I recall, and I know there were many people present.  I know there was a processional, there was music and a sermon, my dad was in a casket at the front of the church, and there was lunch after.  But I don't really remember any of that. 

I have one overriding memory of that day, having nothing to do with my dad or the reason we were there - I had a hole in a my nylons, and I could not stop messing with it.  What started as a tiny finger sized hole, stopped from running with clear fingernail polish, by the end of the day was a run from the waist to my toe.  I picked and pulled and prodded and messed with that hole through the early visitation, the service and the lunch after.  The only time I wasn't messing with the hole in my nylons was at the graveside, where it was simply too cold to do anything but stand and shiver as we quickly did what had to be done so we could get back inside.

Giving Thanks...

This Thanksgiving weekend has been like no other holiday weekend I've ever had.  Because of covid, and more specifically, a covid exposure, I spent the weekend in "covid jail" by myself in my house - four days to think and decorate and cook and think and read and think and... think some more.

Now, those who know me well know how important my "me" time is to me.  I need that alone time to recharge and renew and refresh myself.  I am always thinking to myself, I WISH I had a few days to just be, and not have to do.  At long last, in my busy life, I have had it.  And honestly?  It was everything I hoped for.  It isn't how I want to spend every holiday, but for this one time in my life?  I can honestly say it was good.