Things I learned from MOM:
Yesterday was Mother’s Day. I could get all sappy and walk down memory lane….but I’ll try to just stay simple and to the point. My mom would want it that way. Recently I begged my mom to use her elementary school teacher’s eye to proofread something I’m writing for my children’s project. Before she handed me back my red-lined copy……she hesitated, looked me in the eye, sort of sighed, and said, “Kace…just stop it already.” I laughed. She said, “stop using so many words to say what it is you mean.” Point taken. I’m working on it. I’m going to attempt to share, in as few words as possible, the mantras my mom has installed (yes, I meant to say that over instilled….because it’s like a chip in my brain at this point in life). They are wise. They are priceless. And my mom is both.
1. ”Walk Your Talk”. Simply put. Live your life the way you say you do, and that others should. Easier said than done at times.
2. ”Ain’t No Big Ting”. I believe my dad and our family friend Uncle Tommy gathered this gem up on some trip - maybe to Trinidad. That seemed to influence my dad quite a bit in a lot of ways. (unfortunate for us, in his clothing choices at times) In the grand scheme…a lot of things that we get all bent out of shape over just aren’t a big deal……or thing…..or in a caribbean tongue: Ting.
3. “Chick”. I put this in there, because I grin every time I hear my mom refer to any of her grandkids or grand-dog, Frasier as “chick”. It’s endearing. It’s sweet. It makes me think of her telling about her grandmother she loved so much, messing with the chickens out back at her childhood home in Missouri. ”Hey, chicky!”
4. ”I’ve had it up to HERE with you two.” This is a phrase that was said repeatedly to my sister and I. We would have been sentenced to the top of the stairs after some sort of argument (usually over who had to be Donny and who got to be Marie in one of our shows from the closet). After finally resorting to mom with “she said - she said”, we would be told to sit there and work it out. Usually we would also be guilted into how lucky we were to have a sister of our own, because she had really wanted one growing up and only had a brother…..and one of these days we’d look back and be glad because a sister is a sister…..and then in a blur of words I don’t remember, the infamous hand movement would come. Her hand would shoot up as she said the words “I’ve had it up to…” and then in a precise cheerleader like moment land on “HERE” over her head in a slicing movement. I think that meant she was drowning in our chaos. Usually my sister and I would sit there for a few minutes in the aftermath, I’d agree to be Donny since I was younger, and we would both shudder at the memory of pushing our mom to that point. We’d also both swear we’d NEVER do that to our kids. (Kelly uses that phrase all the time. Complete with motion. I was known to say it when I was a nanny. Thanks mom.)
5. ”Remember WHO you are, and WHOSE you are.” No matter what life has thrown me, I always remember and try to go back to who I am at my core. When I think I’ve completely disappointed my mom, or my family, or even just myself…. I get a card in the mail that is simply signed “who and whose”. The answer, that I know to be true, that she doesn’t even have to write anymore……is “God’s and mine”.
Thanks mom. I love you. Happy Mother’s Day. You’ll always be ‘somebody’s somethin’
xo
Velvet
