The Writing Mamas Daily Blog
Each day on the Writing Mamas Daily Blog, a different member will write about mothering.If you're a mom then you've said these words, you've made these observations and you've lived these situations - 24/7.
And for that, you are a goddess.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Six Toes
Why is it so hard for some of us to get to know our mothers while they are alive?
Every year I get to know my mom better and better. I always knew Dad. He was so enchanting, a story teller, a romantic, and so in need of our love. He deserved it and he got it. I admire him still.
He loved us, but he really, really loved Mom.
They say girls are attached to fathers, their first love. Perhaps, this is true, but I realize more and more that I am a lot like my Mom and she taught by setting an example. She asked for little more than that we be straight-forward, always honest, and do the best we could.
She loved us and wanted us to stay at home forever, but she let us go and admired us for leaving. She was from a third generation of Swedish immigrants that had homesteaded on impossible agricultural land in South Dakota and eventually ended up in Minnesota where they were successful farmers.
She was a woman of few words, (whereas my father, an author, had many). She was
stubborn and tenacious when it came to integrity and honor in all dealings and she was the most kind, understanding person of infants and toddlers that I have every known.
My Mom had an “ear for music.” We used to tease her that she should play with her ears. She would sit at the piano and say, “Just hum the song. I can play it,” and we did, and she would. She really never understood that this was a great talent. In fact, she couldn’t understand why we couldn’t do it for ourselves. It was a natural part of being alive for her.
She never saw herself as special or having any special ability or talent. In fact, I think she sometimes felt like she was not special. I wonder now if this leads back to an accident when she was very young. She was one of nine children on the farm and all went on to get some sort of advanced education. She became a teacher. She was in her early 20s and teaching grades one through eight in a one-room schoolhouse, which were common at that time in sparsely populated rural areas.
One day, a blizzard occurred and as some of the children came a distance to school each day she choose to keep them there and not allow them to venture out into the storm, visibility being zero.
She rotated the children around the pot-bellied stove that furnished warmth. The storm raged and they spent the night in the safety of the school room. The happy part of the story is that all the children survived, and the storm broke with no catastrophe, except to the teacher. My Mom had saved her class from frostbite, or worse, but on each foot two of her toes had been frozen, and were removed. She, perhaps at first, felt slightly deformed but overcame it and never mentioned this loss as in her words, “It’s what’s inside that counts.” It became her mantra. She never saw herself as special, a heroine. She had just done what was right.
When I lost a breast to cancer, the other saying of hers that served me was, “Whatsoever, things be beautiful, look upon these things.”
My mother died of cancer and had but one request and that was that she die at home. The last time I saw her, I knew that this stoic, stubborn, determined child of Swedish immigrants needed to go home. My Dad made that possible.
I called my Dad and he said she could no longer talk. I asked him to put the phone by her ear. I said, “Mom it's okay to go. I need a guardian angel.”
Within a half hour she peacefully died and I have been served at times of need every since. As I grow old and wrinkled, I am renewed by her words, “It’s what’s inside that counts.”
I love my Mom, keeping everyone else warm and safe, stoically moving on, not asking for acknowledgment. The deed that serves the day is enough. She is still an inspiration and when in need, my guardian angel.
I’m still getting to know my Mom.
By Ruth Scott
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Every year I get to know my mom better and better. I always knew Dad. He was so enchanting, a story teller, a romantic, and so in need of our love. He deserved it and he got it. I admire him still.
He loved us, but he really, really loved Mom.
They say girls are attached to fathers, their first love. Perhaps, this is true, but I realize more and more that I am a lot like my Mom and she taught by setting an example. She asked for little more than that we be straight-forward, always honest, and do the best we could.
She loved us and wanted us to stay at home forever, but she let us go and admired us for leaving. She was from a third generation of Swedish immigrants that had homesteaded on impossible agricultural land in South Dakota and eventually ended up in Minnesota where they were successful farmers.
She was a woman of few words, (whereas my father, an author, had many). She was
stubborn and tenacious when it came to integrity and honor in all dealings and she was the most kind, understanding person of infants and toddlers that I have every known.
My Mom had an “ear for music.” We used to tease her that she should play with her ears. She would sit at the piano and say, “Just hum the song. I can play it,” and we did, and she would. She really never understood that this was a great talent. In fact, she couldn’t understand why we couldn’t do it for ourselves. It was a natural part of being alive for her.
She never saw herself as special or having any special ability or talent. In fact, I think she sometimes felt like she was not special. I wonder now if this leads back to an accident when she was very young. She was one of nine children on the farm and all went on to get some sort of advanced education. She became a teacher. She was in her early 20s and teaching grades one through eight in a one-room schoolhouse, which were common at that time in sparsely populated rural areas.
One day, a blizzard occurred and as some of the children came a distance to school each day she choose to keep them there and not allow them to venture out into the storm, visibility being zero.
She rotated the children around the pot-bellied stove that furnished warmth. The storm raged and they spent the night in the safety of the school room. The happy part of the story is that all the children survived, and the storm broke with no catastrophe, except to the teacher. My Mom had saved her class from frostbite, or worse, but on each foot two of her toes had been frozen, and were removed. She, perhaps at first, felt slightly deformed but overcame it and never mentioned this loss as in her words, “It’s what’s inside that counts.” It became her mantra. She never saw herself as special, a heroine. She had just done what was right.
When I lost a breast to cancer, the other saying of hers that served me was, “Whatsoever, things be beautiful, look upon these things.”
My mother died of cancer and had but one request and that was that she die at home. The last time I saw her, I knew that this stoic, stubborn, determined child of Swedish immigrants needed to go home. My Dad made that possible.
I called my Dad and he said she could no longer talk. I asked him to put the phone by her ear. I said, “Mom it's okay to go. I need a guardian angel.”
Within a half hour she peacefully died and I have been served at times of need every since. As I grow old and wrinkled, I am renewed by her words, “It’s what’s inside that counts.”
I love my Mom, keeping everyone else warm and safe, stoically moving on, not asking for acknowledgment. The deed that serves the day is enough. She is still an inspiration and when in need, my guardian angel.
I’m still getting to know my Mom.
By Ruth Scott
Labels: Ruth Scott
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