Yesterday was my mother's birthday and, had she still been alive, she would have been 68 years old. My little son and I went to the cemetery to see the stone reminder of Grandma. My son has never known this Grandma, but she has such a profound influence on his life that he will never understand.
My mother was a single parent. Raising ten children alone. No shared custody, no child support. As a small child, you do not think about this scenario as being anything other than your world. Your existence is your norm and it does not sink in that this woman may be incredible, unselfish - Super Mom with a blazing capitol M. Maybe I thought as a teenager that her hairstyle was slightly outdated or that mopping the kitchen floor by hand was foolish. I know a sister was very vocal about the state of the laundry room in constant disarray - which, by the way, she now has five boys of her own and no semblance of order in her own laundry - and a mother that would return the slights with a "one day you will understand".
And we do. Now we all do. I have one child instead of the mighty army of ten and my hampers overflow, my dryer running at the dead of night to play catch-up. I realize that truth that I could not grasp then. It was much more important to my mother to be a mother first. Laundress, accountant, maid, cook, gardener, and employee were never as important as Mother.
Last night, I could not, in good conscience, put my son's toddler behind in his filthy highchair one more time and we parked it on the kitchen floor, surrounded by a rainbow of MegaBlocks, and ate our dinner. He ate as much as a bird, but enjoyed the homemade bottled apples and the small bird-bites of spaghetti from the spoon. I played with the blocks and we made a tower. I put the dirty dishes in the sink and there they stay until I deal with them.
I will never regret the dirty dishes. I will regret every moment that I could have been on the floor playing instead of cleaning, typing, checking Facebook, or talking nonsense on the phone.
I realize that I, like my mother, understand this concept.
