Your father said I should ask you, before your wedding tomorrow, if there is anything you need to know about men.
For years, I scoffed at the inadequacy of Mother's words, but creative mindfulness allows me to remember her with greater kindness, remembering other gifts she gave me.
My mother said, Remember your ancestors. She said, Your great grandma was a Fulk, born in a log cabin on a Shenandoah mountain, and she married a Turney, and they came in a covered wagon from Virginia. She said, Sometimes you just have to do whatever it takes. This is called a stiff upper lip.
This is called how you live your life. Work through fear.
My mother said, Join 4-H. Pledge your health, your heart, your hands, your head. She said, Learn to make pie crusts and bread; can tomatoes and freeze corn; embroider and crochet; learn to sew and decorate the house for holidays. She said, Practice the piano. She said, Sing in church every time you are asked.
She said, Live the 4-H slogan, “Learn by Doing;” live the 4-H motto, “Make the Best Better.”
My mother said, You should become a hairdresser. She said, You are so good with hair. She said, We could screen in and weatherproof the back porch so you could have a shampoo chair in one corner and a dryer chair in another. When the time is right, there would still be plenty of room for a baby bouncer.
This is how you can be fulfilled as a mother and still bring in extra money.
My mother said, Sure, go ahead and major in music. She said, You inherited those genes from both sides, but just so you don’t start singing opera that the people can’t understand.
Don’t forget your roots.
My mother said, Your father said I should ask you, before your wedding tomorrow, if there is anything you want to know about men. It’s a lot, but this is what women do.
She told me that's what women did.
When I was in fourth grade and still not comfortable staying away from home, Mom volunteered to work at Camp Emmanuel, and she and I spent a week together in separate cabins. Three summers later, I rode with Aunt Sara and Uncle Paul to their new home in Beaumont, TX, and, by myself, took a return train to St. Louis. Four summers later, I toured Europe with the School Band of America, and a decade after that, Mom and Dad visited me the year I lived in London.
I did not become a hairdresser with a weather-proofed, screened-in porch.
Hilarious, and painfully familiar!