Lighten Up and Live Longer

It’s Mother’s Day and we’re in Colorado. The house is cleaned and we’re pretty much unpacked. Winter is still hanging around, and snow is not out of the question. Today, however, it’s a sunny breezy 45. The aspens haven’t popped yet, and the grasses are still their winter brown. The only relief is the red geranium plant hanger we brought with us from the Midwest. It’s soaking up the sun, but will spend nights inside for another month until the danger of frost is passed. Last year, we lost both hanging plants when we forgot to bring them in June 10^th. It snowed.

So while it doesn’t look much like Mother’s Day, I think about how special it is for me, especially for the last four years. Four years ago today, our son called to announce that my Mother’s Day gift was my first grandchild expected mid-January. Miss Ainsley was born Jan 17 and I spent the next two Mother’s Days celebrating grandparenthood.

This Mother’s Day is special because when our son called me with greetings, that Ainsley echoed, he announced the C-section for our second grandchild is scheduled two days hence. Grandmother times two, and pretty darn close to my special day.

But mostly, Mother’s Day gives me pause to think: to wonder what kind of a mother my son thinks I was, and whether he thinks fondly of me on this day. It’s also a time to think fondly of my own mother. Perfect she wasn’t, but we have grown close over the years. I’m so blessed to have her in my life at 83 and post-stroke. If I am really lucky, Mother’s Day with her will go on for another decade or more.

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I’m standing on the brink of being the oldest generation. Family relationships are complex. Being part of the sandwich generation as I am, and grateful to be so, I’m constantly assessing my relationships with my children and my parents. Trying to find the best fit with my daughter-in-law, where I still mess up and say the wrong thing; hoping our son has forgiven us for the mistakes we made raising him, that worry becoming more acute as I see the great job he and his wife are doing with their daughter. Yeah but, I didn’t get trained for childrearing like they have. They have the closest thing to an owners manual for parenthood yet. He’s a pretty cool guy, though, so maybe we didn’t mess up too badly. He couldn’t have come up with all that character on his own.

All these things go through my mind perhaps because of the cemeteries. In two days, I visited three deceased sets of parents: my dad’s, my mom’s, and my husband’s. The fact that I was there with my parents to see this gives me the tiniest bit of breathing space. But it’s coming: soon I will be the oldest of the oldest generation and my son will be having these thoughts about me: whether I’m starting to fail, how long I’ll be around, and how old HE is becoming. Right now, I feel the occasional clutch of panic at the thought of eventual decline. I look at my sweetie, who is the oldest of the oldest generation in his family. Next spring, he will become Medicare man, and that shakes me. What shakes me more is the feeling that my dear parents are slowly slipping through my fingers. At 83 and 85, they have their problems. My mom had a stroke last summer and has come back about as far as she is able. Though staying active and always trying to get stronger, she reminds her daughters that she won’t be alive this time next year. Stop it, Mom!

I can’t imagine life without them. Our son is close to his grandparents. Being the oldest, I’m probably closest of my sisters to them. But I can’t help feeling that all I do won’t make a difference. All I can do is hold on to them for as long as possible, and make sure they feel as loved as they can be. We can give them that.

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There can be great joy in repetitive tasks. If it’s something like ironing, it perks up your wardrobe and keeps you from looking like you slept in your clothes. If it’s dishwashing or cleaning, it can keep the vermin down, long-term. But what’s really useful about these drudgeries we all face is they give you time to think about what’s going on in the background of your life. You realize that something is kind of eating away at you and plan out a glorious speech to right that injustice. Whether or not you actually carry through with it is moot. You have addressed the issue on your own terms.

Take for instance the bum raps we sometimes get from our kids: “You NEVER did this; you ALWAYS did that!” And if that’s not bad enough, add in some in-laws. It’s a wonder they aren’t so totally warped and destroyed, institutionalization is the only answer. And if you were guilty once, it seems to become a theme, whether or not you continue to commit this particular sin. We were accused to talking too much about ourselves. No matter that we were trying to find common grounds with similar experiences with our daughter-in-law. Motivation does not enter in.

So we stop talking about ourselves at all. Who cares if we just got back from Timbuktu or mysterious Marrakech. We can’t mention it-even if we are asked, because they don’t really want to know. Our son takes great pride in the fact that he never talks about himself. Well, here is news for you, bucko: that pretty much stinks as far as parents are concerned. We have no idea what is going on in your life, how you feel about your job, or anything else for that matter. All you talk about is how amazing our granddaughter is. Do you think that we’ve stopped caring how our son is, or wouldn’t like to know more about our daughter-in-law?

We may never have this conversation, but I feel a lot better about working it out in my head. Too bad I ran out of ironing.

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