Sunday, May 10, 2020

Mother Dear

Two days before Mother's Day, I was listening to a radio program on my way home from work. They were asking folks to call in with one word that described their mother. A word immediately came to mind. Perhaps because it was such an unlikely word, I picked up the phone to call. I never do this kind of thing, and it's a syndicated show, so the likelihood of getting through or even that they would be live at that hour, was minimal. It only rang once before I got the message: "Due to a large volume of calls -- blah, blah, blah." I hung up, but knew this was something I had to share.

Mom and I have been together some fifty-five years or so. My earliest memories of her are watching her iron to perfection our ruffled white cotton curtains and her cotton lace doilies. She'd set the ironing board up in the living room as she watched her shows and set to work. I don't recall just how many pairs of those curtains or how many of those doilies we had, but I do remember it taking nearly all day, or seemingly so.

I remember Mom's wigs. She had several different shades. I suppose I find them remarkable, because I remember with equal intensity her trips to the hairdresser every Saturday morning. Some weeks I would go with her, and some of those weeks would culminate gloriously in an Egg McMuffin at McDonald's and maybe, some comic books at the local thrift store.

Mom loved "being crafty." Toilet paper dolls? We had 'em. Grapevine wreaths, plastic canvas tissue covers, and embroidered samplers? Yep. Crocheted afghans and granny square hats? Those too. (There was a granny square vest or two, I'd prefer not to discuss.) Mom made cupcakes for every school event, each one topped with one of her colorful "signature" roses -- crafted with nothing more than a toothpick and Mom's eye for detail. For years, she worked in a snack shop at one of the first retirement communities to come to our area. She lovingly decorated each table, hung streamers, adorned windows, season after season, holiday after holiday. Many of the decorations were custom crafted by Mom on quiet Saturday nights.

But, creativity became one of the first battle grounds between Mom and I. Our church youth group was putting together a project to decorate the church: select a verse that had personal significance and craft a banner illustrating that verse. Eager to get started the following day after school, I rushed out of the church with my felt and burlap. But, when I hopped off the bus the next day, Mom met me at the door with my banner, already completed, emblazoned with a verse that "meant nothing to me." I was infuriated. It was one of many power struggles Mom and I had throughout the years. Mom had only one only true friend, her daughter. Watching me inch closer and closer to autonomy and more age-appropriate relationships with every birthday, Mom became both my ward and my captor. Her dependency drove me toward adulthood while her fear of abandonment demanded I remain unquestioning and childlike. Even in my forties, when I became ill, Mom's reaction upon hearing was, "What will I do if something happens to you?" I learned to be tough but not strong, right but not righteous. Mom was desperate, neurotic, and depressed -- I believe, clinically.

Fast forward to today. Mom requires care almost constantly. Caring for someone you've cared for most of your life, someone who was supposed to care for you and couldn't... well, it has been difficult. But not because Mom made it that way. Because I have been resistant to what God can do and wants to do in me. Mom and I are here for a reason, and we can create our own or seek God's. I am choosing to seek God's. Granted, I may have to seek it multiple times in a day, but I am choosing to seek it. And the Holy Spirit is blessing me, changing my heart. To one that serves with compassion and mercy, to one that is soft and receptive to God's commands; to a heart that loves because Jesus first loved me and gave the whole of His life -- His teaching, His healing, His death and His resurrection -- that I might be made more like Him. The Holy Spirit is changing my heart to one that, when given the challenge to describe my mother in one word, lovingly, compassionately, with all honesty cries out, "Dear. My mother dear."