mother's day

I just finished a wonderful, funny book called "We're Just Like You, Only Prettier" by Celia Rivenbark. It is a more "Southern" version of my favorite parenting guide "Confessions of a Slacker Mom." First of all, a big thank you to my friend Whitney for loaning me this book...I have laughed and laughed reading it.

I'm going to quote a passage from this book...it is the only passage in the book that was serious, and given the last year in my life, very meaningful. It is the end of a chapter about making kids crafts out of macaroni.


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...I know something more: that on those ong days when we in the sandwich generation feel squezed and spent and are tempted to grouse about being either mother or daughter, we should be fall-on-our-knees grateful to be both.

Because the truth is simple. Our time is fleeting and dear. As a good friend explained it, one day it is our mother who is buying us the Chatty Cathy that we begged for; the next, or so it seems, we find ourselves taking a baby doll as a gift to a mother in the nursing home. It has always struck me that women in nursing home beds almost always have baby dolls in their rooms. I suspect it is because they remind them of the happiest time of their lives. I know it is mine.

One day in a hospital room somewhere, you will hold a hand that you can't even recgnize anymore. It may be thin and dry and tiny, the rings way too big even with the guards you bought for her at the jewelry store.

Look closer and you'll recognize the hand that pushed you in the swing, the one that felt your burning forehead when you were sick, the one that stroked your hair the first time you had your heart broken and cried for a solid three hours.

For all of you mothers, for all of you who want to be mothers, for all of you "other mothers" who nurture children not your own, may you have a lifetime of Mother's Days filled with your own brand of macaroni magic.
I plan to.
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Thank you, Celia...that is a beautiful tribute.