perspectives on mother's day

So we are back. PHEW. And while I will blog on it in a bit, first I must write on this most momentous day. Mother's Day. It is a day we all anticipate, a little recognition above and beyond the norm. Maybe even a nap. I just took one and am totally groggy. And now I am blogging while dada unpacks all the suitcases and does vacation laundry. Totally lucked out on the timing of the day, eh? HA.

Anyway.

It's an interesting thing seeing a grown man around his mother in his childhood home. It's a whole new perspective on who that man is, where he is from, who he has become. Of course, this is where we just were, with dada and his family. And while their house isn't the house dada grew up in it is filled with memorobilia from his childhood. His Matchbox car collection, much to little man's pleasure. Grade school pictures line the walls. The very story books his mother read to him are still in their kid book collection. And of course, it is in his childhood hometown. His beloved Pittsburgh.

When I was a kid, I remember watching my dad interact with his mom on our summer trips to Iowa. She would call him Johnnie, giving him a "to-do" list upon our arrival. "Johnnie, could you climb up and fix the gutter? It's too high for your dad. Johnnie, your father could use help tilling up the old rasberry patch. Johnnie, that door always squeaks." He would smile and nod and accomplish the list each time. It was their routine of showing love to each other. He performing as the dutiful son, the eldest and the only boy, loving his mama with his hands. She, acknowledging the handy man he was, able to fix a toaster with nothing but a butter knife and a bit of electrical tape.

This week I watched as my husband did the same for his mom, loving her and supporting her, his "Ma," as he says, while she showed she still needed him, her boy, in her own way.

And more than that, watching their whole family interact. Siblings teasing and talking. Remembering old times. And all our children twirling and giggling and tumbling through the chaos.

What an amazing thing, a family.




no, that is NOT a weed girls!



little man getting a lesson or two in soccer
from his near-pro cousin

And as I sat back, taking it in, I see his mother, smiling from the porch swing in the fading spring sunlight, watching cousins wrestle and play. And I realize, this is what I am creating, this legacy. This is what mothering is - the cement that bonds these relationships, that fosters them, that instructs them. 

We get so caught up in the day to day - though living in the day to day is necessary and right! - but we forget to pull back and recognize the importance of our work.

These siblings, that you remind not to hit a million times a day, will one day laugh in your back yard, eating blackberry pie, as their sons tackle each other on the soggy grass and their daughters teach the littlest cousins how to weed without pulling up grandpa's marigolds.

 

grass stains well worth the romp in the sunshine with cousins



These days are when we put in the hard work. Those evenings, in the cool spring air with laughter ringing around us, those moments are when we see the fruit of our work. And yes, we get our happy realizations of it here and there, but, creating those bonds, that love, that is our legacy.

Just a little Mother's Day perspective...

Happy Mommy Day to you all!

And especially to my Mama, and my husband's Ma. We appreciate what you have created!