Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.
You left us 26 years ago on a cold day in January. The 9th day to be specific. At the time, there were three grandbabies. You met all three though, I’m sorry if this hurts you, they never really knew you.
Now there are six grandchildren – three boys and three girls. I talk and write about you but it’s not the same. Of course it isn’t. How could anything but your presence paint more than a rough portrait of you?
I’ve told my daughter – almost 25 years old now – all about your sewing skills, your drawing ability, your fashion sense. She asks sometimes what you would think of something she made. Like the blankets she crocheted. I told her that my sister and I taught you to crochet when we learned in our Home Econ class in high school.
You were always a quick study, learning new skills at will, though never giving yourself credit for the effort that takes. Instead, you beat yourself up your entire life for not going to college. I’m not even convinced that you wanted a college education, though you totally could have done it. I know that your mom wanted you to go to college, perhaps because that wasn’t an option for Grandma.
My kids all know about your green thumb, Mom, about how you could get anything – except violets – to grow. Do you remember how I used to tease you because I could grow violets? I was so proud of being able to do something you couldn’t do. Having a special touch with violets made me feel 10 feet tall. Somehow, after leaving home, I completely lost my skill. I haven’t been able to keep a violet alive since I was 20 years old. Rather suspicious, don’t you think?
You also taught me about secrets, though it may have been an unintended lesson. I’ve never met a better secret keeper than you. In truth, it’s unlikely I ever will. My children learned, instead, the danger of secrets. We are open books, thinking, perhaps, that talking is a better way of living. I don’t blame you. I doubt that there was any generation more emotionally unavailable than the children of two world wars (my grandparents). How could you possibly be open when your own parents were so stoic, so remarkably inaccessible?
I miss you every day, you know. When I pull out your cookbook or the recipes written in your elegant script, I think about what it was like to work in the kitchen with you. Your pies were the stuff of legend. No one who bought them from the many, many bake sales for school events and Girl Scouts ever knew how often you cried while you made the crust. No matter how much you fussed that you’d lost your touch, each crust was perfect, flaky and delicious. I’ve never – even using your recipe and your rolling pin – made a crust as good as yours.
My eldest son has stood beside me – 5 inches taller with a full beard – to make pies just like you and I did. Strawberry, apple, rhubarb, key lime, lemon meringue – we’ve made them all. Do you remember how much you hated the graham cracker crust that we made for strawberry pie? You’d say, every time, that the graham cracker flavor was overbearing. And I say, every time I make one, that you never liked that graham cracker crust. What do you suppose my kids will say when they make strawberry pie in their own homes?
Sometimes, when I make a meal using a recipe that isn’t yours, I’ll look at your version just to remember, again, what it was like to sit in the kitchen doing homework while you and I talked. My kids don’t do homework on the kitchen table with the tablecloth rolled back. They work on laptop computers in their rooms. But they know, because I’ve told them, what it was like to sit there talking to you until Dad got home. How, if I was fast enough, I’d run to my room before he saw me and took a swing.
It’s not your fault, though. I get that you couldn’t figure out how to stop him, that you were protecting yourself too. I’m only a little mad at you for putting your own safety ahead of mine. I’d have put your safety first too, you know. If only you’d asked. You didn’t intend it but you taught me about my own strength. His hands hurt me so much less than they would have hurt you. I’m mostly at peace with it – well, with some of it anyway – and I hope you are too.
You were never able to forgive yourself for any of your humanity – your flaws, your choices, your life. I hope you have found peace, wherever you are. One time, shortly before you died, my son held your finger and you said to him, “Remember me.”
It was a lot to ask of him – barely 1 year old when you died. It was a lot to ask of me, too, really. Sometimes I feel like I was just an adult-in-training when you died; but I have kept you alive, in my own way, through my own memories. Perhaps that is enough.
Love you forever, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.
Front row: Charles Park Graves, Jr, Mary Ann Graves Ainsworth (my mom), Patricia Graves Thorr, William Graves
