Memorial Day Memories of Mom
Posted by Mary B. Lucas | Posted in
Laundry & Life Lessons
This morning as I dumped a basket of warm, clean towels onto the bed for folding, I was thinking about my last speaking engagement. It had been my largest audience yet - 600 people connecting with the lessons my Dad taught me that had guided me through my toughest career years. Somebody in the audience asked me when my next book is coming out; my next book?
My first book, Lunchmeat & Life Lessons, arrived purely by accident. When my Father passed away I searched for some sense of comfort by writing down the lessons he had taught me. His brilliantly skilled, common sense teachings have sustained me through nearly 30 years in business. When he died I wrote down my memories and his stories, had them printed in spiral bound notebooks and handed them out to each of my siblings on what would have been Dad’s 90th birthday (he died at 88). That’s a lot of copies.
There were ten of us: Joan, Judy, Johnny, Jimmy, Joey, Jerry, Jeannie, Jane, me (Mary) and Barbie. I can assure you it took more than Dad to create that string of siblings, and more than just his advice to raise us. He was the larger than life presence in our family and the community we lived in. Not only did he dish out words of wisdom to me, but his words also inspired many other people throughout his life.
My Mom was less “out there;” she was more simple, gentle, subtle. Mom’s wisdom was more evident in what she did than what she said. I so cherish my observations of her being a mother and a friend and take tremendous pride in the fact that I’m her namesake. I was my parents’ ninth child and since they had just about exhausted every “J” name in the book, I was named Mary after my Mom.
On this Memorial Day morning, as I reached for the last towel on the bed, still warm from the dryer, it reminded me of what Mom felt like with her warm, soft arms ready to wrap around me at a moments notice. Mom was my place to fall. She had always made it clear, without any uncertainty, that we had a home, a home she had made. While Dad was the face of our family to the outside world for the most part, Mom was the center of our family at home. Even in a house full of ten children, our home was my quiet, safe haven because of Mom.
This morning, Memorial Day 2011, I missed my Mom. I stopped what I was doing, put the towels aside and went back to the journal I kept in the days after her passing.
You see, Lunchmeat & Life Lessons may have been the first book I published, but my “Memories of Mom” journal was the first book I wrote. Just like I did when Dad passed away in 2004, after Mom’s passing in 2000, I found comfort in words as well.
I decided to dust off that first book and take a look back at some of my entries and share some of them here with all of you.
Move over Lunchmeat & Life Lessons, it’s time for some “Laundry & Life Lessons” - all inspired by Mom.
Starting this Memorial Day, Monday, 2011, I would like to share the following “Memory of Mom” and who knows? Maybe more Mom Monday Memories will follow.
Excerpt from my Journal: March 16, 2000
“Home is Where Your Mom is”
The night we buried Mom, we “little girls” – my sisters Jeannie, Jane, Barbie and me - couldn’t pull ourselves from Mom and Dad’s house. We sat curled up on the couch where I had snuggled all my childhood life with Mom. She would lie there on her side, and I would use her hip for my pillow, covering my legs with a crocheted afghan she had made and we would watch TV together.
It was my favorite place to be.
It was just after 2:00 AM when Dad walked into the family room. “Girls, what are you still doing here? You need to go home to your families. You need to get back to living your lives. This is not what your Mom would want you to do. Jean, Jane and Mary, go home now. The best way to honor your mother is to be the best Mom’s you can be and that’s at your own home.”
I knew in my head that he was right, but in my heart I still felt like that little blonde girl with hair to her waist and bangs on her forehead. “But Dad,” I cried.
“Who will we go to for ‘motherly advice?’”
“Mary, you don’t need to worry about that now...your boys are single-digit age and that’s a double-digit problem. Don’t worry about that now just go home to your boys!”
It was difficult, but we slowly pulled ourselves apart and, despite being grief-stricken, made our way to our respective homes. With all the busyness of the last few days, little had gotten down around my house so I walked into my kitchen to find a huge stack of mail waiting for me. Mother’s Day was approaching and the stack was chock-full of catalogues.
I had been up for more than 24 hours, yet my eyes focused on one of the Mother’s Day gifts featured on the back of a magazine. A framed print with the words,
“HOME IS WHERE YOUR MOM IS.”
Just when I thought I couldn’t feel anymore lost, the phrase knocked the wind right out of me: “HOME IS WHERE YOUR MOM IS?”
So where is MY home now that Mom is gone? Then in a flash, my mind turned the phrase and I got it: Mom IS home now. HOME (up above) IS WHERE YOUR MOM IS.
I remembered what Dad had said less than an hour earlier: To honor Mom by being the best Mom I can be, to be the kind of mother my mother was to me,
to be the kind of woman she showed me how to be.
I finally crawled into bed with new hope that perhaps someday I will go home to be with her again.
In Loving Memory of Mary Helen Matson Bichelmyer
God, help me be the type of person here on Earth
deserving of a place in Your home,
so that I can see my Mom again.
My Memorial Day wish for you… may the memories of the loved ones you have lost sustain you today and every day just as mine are sustaining me.
God Bless!
