News
The Single Life: Special day jostles lifetime of memories
By Mary Ann Linforth
I cannot help but remember my own mother on this Mother’s Day.
She was born at the turn of the 20th century and lived through wars and depressions — wars that were capitalized and depressions that touched everyone.
My mother was there when women won the right to vote. She was married to one man for well over 50 years.
She wrapped bandages and volunteered at the hospital. She nursed my brother through polio. She wore custom-made corsets with real whalebones, and she smoked Chesterfield cigarettes. She went to Juilliard and could play the piano as if the keys were 88 lovers. She seldom raised her voice.
Actually, if she had an opinion, she kept it pretty much to herself.
But the older she grew, the more she became sure of herself. By the time I was born, she was short on patience. She would wonder aloud about the politics of the day, but would revert to Mrs. Charles Linforth when she wanted to order groceries. She had to put up with me during the 1950s and was already a grandmother when my children were born.
When I have the opportunity to speak to senior groups, one of my major topics is to ask you to begin to remember your past and write it down. There will come a day after we are gone when someone from the family asks about your mother.
How will her history stay alive if you don’t develop a full picture of the woman? I have a strawberry-colored lock of her hair. It will never age. It will never grow old.
And so once again, I am on a flying bus to California for a family reunion that includes two birthdays, a first communion and Mother’s Day. I was also the mother to or the grandmother of everyone there.
It was time to bond with some of the younger ones who wouldn’t have known who I was if they tripped over me. It was time to teach an eight-year-old how to play Blackjack, allowing all fingers to be used to count. It was time to have some computer lessons from an older grandson who knows how to work every gadget and talks in techno speak. It was time to ask everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up.
One evening when most of the young ones were either asleep or in front of a video, my daughter and my son and I had a few minutes of time together. We got to talking about who the children looked like. The conversation got very specific.
She has your skin.
He has your terrible teeth.
I look at her and I can see your mother.
He has an allergy to chicken. Where did that come from?
She has your eyes.
He knows every swear word.
And so on. I wondered just how deeply my two children carried on raising their children in this day and age. I can remember the first word my daughter learned was a swear word. I’m not proud of that, but I did spend a great deal of time in the car with her. The mama and dadda were in place. Yelling @#$% in the supermarket was not a good thing.
I asked my children if they were happy. A lot of heads turned to look into the eyes of their mates. It was terrific to watch that dynamic. It is all about the eyes. Your expression can say one thing, but the eyes can’t lie in my world.
In spite of both of my children coping with a total of 10 children and their spouses, the slow but general answer was that yes, they were happy.
Then it was my turn.
Now that you are living alone, Mom, are you happy the way things turned out?
There was only one answer and that was yes, followed by my thankfulness for the support and the understanding that both my children were there for me 100 percent of the time. I am totally in love with my new life, my community, my new friendships and have finally found a strong faith. Add to that the opportunity to write this column.
All that said, I’m still me. The good and the bad have been distributed throughout my children and theirs. It will be fascinating if I live long enough to see what the grandchildren turn into as adults. I wonder what life will throw at them and I can only hope that they have the support system, the safety net to keep them going no matter what.
So once again, back to the air/bus ride home. The last time I wrote about this same flight, the captain was on his last flight before retirement. The plane was up and down four times before it came to rest in Albuquerque. I didn’t get to wish him a wonderful retirement and that lord knows he must have been looking forward to just staring at the clouds, never mind flying through them.
This time, the captain was a woman. So was her copilot. I put away the prayer book and settled down for the up and the down until we landed in Tucson. The captain was standing at the door of the cockpit as we filed off.
Thank you for a great flight.
Glad you enjoyed it.
No retirement in sight for that woman, but maybe a husband and children, and in my heart I wished her some stories to tell and some wonderful family reunions.
Mary Ann Linforth is a Green Valley freelance writer. Contact her at maryannlinforth@aol.com.
She was born at the turn of the 20th century and lived through wars and depressions — wars that were capitalized and depressions that touched everyone.
My mother was there when women won the right to vote. She was married to one man for well over 50 years.
She wrapped bandages and volunteered at the hospital. She nursed my brother through polio. She wore custom-made corsets with real whalebones, and she smoked Chesterfield cigarettes. She went to Juilliard and could play the piano as if the keys were 88 lovers. She seldom raised her voice.
Actually, if she had an opinion, she kept it pretty much to herself.
But the older she grew, the more she became sure of herself. By the time I was born, she was short on patience. She would wonder aloud about the politics of the day, but would revert to Mrs. Charles Linforth when she wanted to order groceries. She had to put up with me during the 1950s and was already a grandmother when my children were born.
When I have the opportunity to speak to senior groups, one of my major topics is to ask you to begin to remember your past and write it down. There will come a day after we are gone when someone from the family asks about your mother.
How will her history stay alive if you don’t develop a full picture of the woman? I have a strawberry-colored lock of her hair. It will never age. It will never grow old.
And so once again, I am on a flying bus to California for a family reunion that includes two birthdays, a first communion and Mother’s Day. I was also the mother to or the grandmother of everyone there.
It was time to bond with some of the younger ones who wouldn’t have known who I was if they tripped over me. It was time to teach an eight-year-old how to play Blackjack, allowing all fingers to be used to count. It was time to have some computer lessons from an older grandson who knows how to work every gadget and talks in techno speak. It was time to ask everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up.
One evening when most of the young ones were either asleep or in front of a video, my daughter and my son and I had a few minutes of time together. We got to talking about who the children looked like. The conversation got very specific.
She has your skin.
He has your terrible teeth.
I look at her and I can see your mother.
He has an allergy to chicken. Where did that come from?
She has your eyes.
He knows every swear word.
And so on. I wondered just how deeply my two children carried on raising their children in this day and age. I can remember the first word my daughter learned was a swear word. I’m not proud of that, but I did spend a great deal of time in the car with her. The mama and dadda were in place. Yelling @#$% in the supermarket was not a good thing.
I asked my children if they were happy. A lot of heads turned to look into the eyes of their mates. It was terrific to watch that dynamic. It is all about the eyes. Your expression can say one thing, but the eyes can’t lie in my world.
In spite of both of my children coping with a total of 10 children and their spouses, the slow but general answer was that yes, they were happy.
Then it was my turn.
Now that you are living alone, Mom, are you happy the way things turned out?
There was only one answer and that was yes, followed by my thankfulness for the support and the understanding that both my children were there for me 100 percent of the time. I am totally in love with my new life, my community, my new friendships and have finally found a strong faith. Add to that the opportunity to write this column.
All that said, I’m still me. The good and the bad have been distributed throughout my children and theirs. It will be fascinating if I live long enough to see what the grandchildren turn into as adults. I wonder what life will throw at them and I can only hope that they have the support system, the safety net to keep them going no matter what.
So once again, back to the air/bus ride home. The last time I wrote about this same flight, the captain was on his last flight before retirement. The plane was up and down four times before it came to rest in Albuquerque. I didn’t get to wish him a wonderful retirement and that lord knows he must have been looking forward to just staring at the clouds, never mind flying through them.
This time, the captain was a woman. So was her copilot. I put away the prayer book and settled down for the up and the down until we landed in Tucson. The captain was standing at the door of the cockpit as we filed off.
Thank you for a great flight.
Glad you enjoyed it.
No retirement in sight for that woman, but maybe a husband and children, and in my heart I wished her some stories to tell and some wonderful family reunions.
Mary Ann Linforth is a Green Valley freelance writer. Contact her at maryannlinforth@aol.com.
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