Oh my mama

We thought you were so wonderful.

My mother's mother was almost idolized by her children and the people in her town. They once had a day named for her because of her good deeds, Christian values, and actual beauty even unto her nineties. So I suppose it stood to reason that we would do the same with our mother, her daughter.

Brought up to believe everything your mother does is in your best interest and other worldly wise is a hazard for people like us, because in the end there has to be a realization that she is only mortal and a product of her own age and upbringing.

My mother was often histrionic, throwing glasses and chairs at walls, quick to backhand me when the spirit moved her and I deserved it. Even something like flinching could bring that on, my mother believed that if I flinched or ducked when she came near me I must have done something wrong.

She doled out advice at opportune times, like my first date when I dared to look in the mirror at the dress she made for me and the hair she styled for me and say, "I look pretty." Her response? "You aren't pretty if you think so."

She had a mean streak and it was not always passive aggressive, but that was there too. It was another one of those legacies she passed down to my sister and me.

I don't know what her thoughts on child rearing were. She was dead before I realized I had spent years learning not to do many of the things I thought were her gifts to me, but I am certain she felt we were the most important part of her life. She loved us the way her mother loved her. She loved us to the very best of her ability and I think that must have been very confusing and frustrating for her.

It wasn't until I reconnected with my uncle, her youngest brother that I realized much of this, because his life has been much like hers was. Like children in a cult, we were taught our mothers were saints and not only saints, but all knowing, all wise saints.

The other day I had one of those eye opening experiences that happen to people always working on themselves. I remembered the things my mother-in-law-to-be once said and did for me. They were not the things my mother said and did, so I ignored them, even sometimes looked down on them as annoying meddling things.

She told me I was beautiful and should wear my hair back to accentuate my face. I thought she was old and out of date.She thought I was too young to get married, she wanted me to, at least, finish college first and I thought she was just trying to keep us from getting married. She told me not to let my husband-to-be ever hurt me, to remember who I was and value myself.. She bought me lovely clothes, made me wonderful knitted outfits. She took me to school when she was teaching and let me help out in her classroom.

She often said I was the daughter she always wanted and somehow I found that wrong too, but I think that might have been real mothering. Offering kindness and wisdom that was given to make me a happier and a better person.

I think she loved me.

And I felt if I accepted that I was being disloyal to my own mother who made it very clear that the most powerful form of showing I respected and loved her was to do and be like her.