MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS

MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS
This year Mother’s day was wonderful and continues to be my favorite day of the year. My son who lives in Alaska chatted with me on the phone for an hour and informed me that he and his girlfriend bought a microwave oven on Craig’s list in order to make homemade soy candles as a Mother’s Day gift.
My 29 year old daughter spent the day with me and during the morning we were out and about and ran into many people I know. The reoccurring comment was “Your daughter looks just like you.” I don’t really know how I feel when I hear that comment. I remember when Suzanna was ten years old hiking up the hill to catch the bus to school. My neighbor who watched her said, “Your young daughter looks just like you, in fact, she even walks like you!” At the time, I remember thinking, “Poor Suzanna.” In my heart, I was hoping for more for her.
Yesterday, I phoned my mother who lives in a nursing home in New Mexico. When my daughter talked with her, I overheard the following – “Mom and I went to the nursery this morning and looked at plants and it was so much fun. When I was a little girl, my Mom made me help her in the garden and I hated it. Now, I love gardening, it is so meditative!”
Unlike the comment that we look alike, which is the luck of genetic draw, I knew exactly how I felt about her turning out just like me in the gardening area. I was very pleased. I had exposed her to the beauty of digging in the earth and it had imprinted on her. In this regard, my daughter is just like me and it is all I hoped for.

AWAY FROM HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

My son will not be celebrating Christmas with us. He lives too far away. This will be our third holiday season without him since he graduated from college and took a job in Alaska. I cope by chatting with him on the phone about his plans: Where he is going for dinner, what will they eat, who will be there, what he will bring, have I met any of these people…. I use my imagination to visualize him laughing, happy and enjoying himself with someone else’s family.

Last month, I missed his twenty-fifth birthday celebration and sharing Thanksgiving Day with him. In the next four weeks, he will not be with us at Christmas, or at his father and my 40th wedding anniversary party or at my birthday dinner. It seems like a lot of occasions to celebrate without him.

This year I am struggling with his absence a bit more than I have done the past two years. Yesterday, when I unpacked the Christmas decorations, I came across a red satin ball with his name written in glue and sprinkled with silver glitter. It was given to him in 1989 when he was five years old and signed by someone I no longer remember. I held the ball, tempted to mail it to him to put in his own home in Anchorage. Instead, I wrapped it in tissue and put it back in the box.

I join countless other empty nesters who will celebrate the holidays without their sons and daughters who are in the military, overseas, or working at jobs far away. We will be saddened by the lack of their presence next to us at the dinner table, but at the same time gladdened that they are in our hearts and in our lives.