May 9, 2015
(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and
illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)
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| My mother and me |
Not a day goes by that I don’t think of my mother
who passed away in 1995, but today she has been on my mind even more. I just
searched for photos of my mother and me together and discovered there are only
a few. She did not like people to take pictures of her and when I became the
family photographer, most of my photos show her with her mouth open saying, “Don’t
[take my picture],” or with her hand blocking her face. However, she did
have a sense of history and the importance of family record, and she posed in
group photos throughout her life. The only photos I have that include my mother
and me are when I was a baby or, later, those that also have one or both of my
sisters in it. I was the first-born of three daughters, but as her family grew,
she never showed favoritism. “I love all my children equally,” she said more
than a few times. This certainly had an effect on how my sisters and I relate,
with the absence of jealousy.
I think it must have been more difficult for my
mother to love me as much as my sisters. Even in some of the toddler photos of
both of us, I seem to be struggling to push away and go in another direction.
My middle sister Nancy is 27 months younger than me, and my mother loved to
dress us alike so that many people thought we were twins. She always laid out
our outfits for us in the morning—matching outfits. One day I rebelled. Maybe I
was six. I refused to wear the same thing as my sister. I said, “I’m not her. I
don’t want to wear the same thing.” My mother must have wisely figured out that
some battles are not worth fighting and I got my way.
My mother and I were very different. She filled her
life with family and domestic skills. She did not read books unless they were
filled with recipes or directions for crocheting and I devoured books, especially novels. She sought friends like
herself, while I have always wanted a larger circle. I love to travel but she did not and said, “My home and my family are good enough for me.” We took comfort in
knowing how much she cared for us.
She would fight for us like a lioness if she
thought we had been wronged. I was an excellent student and well-behaved, but
in the 5th grade I received detention for the first time. During
recess, the older students had one section of the playground and the younger
ones another. A teacher-appointed “safety” would help ensure that the class followed
the rules. I was looking at the “monkey bars” during one recess where I wanted
to climb to the top. The student safety must have noticed this and she said to
me, “Go ahead. I won’t tell on you.” The gullible kid that I was, I did. The
safety reported me and I had to stay after school. When I arrived late to my
mother, who was waiting outside the school at dismissal time, I told her
tearfully what had happened. I was humiliated that the teacher had to punish
me. My mother saw it a different way. “That girl was mean to you. She tempted
you and then betrayed you.” Then she marched in to tell the teacher how it had
really gone down.
Another time, though, my mother did not take up for
me when I was bullied. I had just learned to ride a two-wheel
bicycle. My father had gotten hold of an old boys’ bike but my legs weren’t
long enough to reach the pedals. He tied wooden blocks onto the pedals so I
could reach them. Getting onto the bike was difficult. At first he lifted me on
and ran down the alley with me as he held onto the bike seat to steady me. No
training wheels for me. Just a large bike and his hands that let go more and
more frequently until I had my balance. Once I could ride it on my own, there
was the problem of getting on and off the bike. I had to lean the bike in
toward a fence and carefully climb on. Then I’d push out cautiously with my
hand to start my balance while I began to pedal. When I stopped, I had to steer
over to a fence and reverse the process. It worked, though, and I felt like I’d
come of age with my bike and new skills.
My
riding territory was limited to just one block... the alley behind our house. I
couldn’t ride in the street because my mother said it was too dangerous. So I
rode up and down the alley hundreds of times, feeling quite independent.
One
time, however, as I got about three-quarters of the way toward the lower end, a
chubby girl shouted out that I was not allowed to go past her yard. I ignored
her and continued, carefully turned around at the end, and rode to the other
end. Again I turned around and rode down the alley, but this time, she was
standing in the middle with feet planted far apart and arms outstretched.
“Nyaa,
nyaa, nyaa, nyaa nyaa! You can’t go past!” She taunted me.
I
didn’t have any choice but to steer toward a fence, carefully get off and say,
“Yes, I can!”
“No
you can’t,” she replied and didn’t budge.
I
walked my bike back to my house and complained to my mother, who was in the
kitchen shelling peas and making crabcakes, purchases from the A-rab and his
horse-drawn wagon that had come down our alley earlier that morning. I told her
what had happened and she said I had every right to ride in the alley. I should
get back on my bike, tell the girl that she couldn’t do that and to please
move.
The
same scene played out again and I walked my bike back home.
“Please
go down there and make her let me go by,” I begged my mother.
“No,”
she said. “You get back on your bike. Tell her to move or you’ll run her over.”
What?!!!
My mother was telling me to run over someone on my bike! My usually gentle,
non-violent mother. So I leaned my bike against the fence, climbed on, reached
my feet down to the wooden blocks on the pedals, and carefully pushed off. Just
as I’d feared, the bully was positioned and blocking my way. I told her in a shaky
voice, “Move or I’ll run you over.”
“You
dare!” she said.
These
words did it! How dare she step on my rights! I took a deep breath and actually
pedaled harder. In my heart, I desperately hoped she’d see me barreling down on
her and jump out of the way at the last minute. But she didn’t. And I ran into
her.
She
fell and I noticed tread marks on her arm. I fell and accumulated a number of
scrapes. She ran into her house crying to her mother. I got back up on my bike,
finished to the end, turned around and came back up the alley...with no one
blocking the way. She never tried that stunt again. I had freed my alley from
tyranny.
The
point of this story is that my mother gave me something special that day,
something that eventually helped me deal with teaching middle school and junior
high students. She helped me understand the power I had to deal with some
problems.
Later,
in my teen years, she may have had some regrets because I gave her and my
father more trouble than they had anticipated. We had our battles and often we
did not see eye-to-eye. But when I married a man she would not have chosen for
me (and whom I later divorced), she kept quiet. Later she learned to love my
second husband David. Although she
disapproved of my timeline, marrying six weeks before our baby was born, she
was ecstatic about her new grandchild, the first granddaughter, and loved
looking after her for weekends and sometimes for a couple of weeks while David
and I traveled. For my mother, family was her whole life and that was what gave
it meaning.
She
often offered me advice on how to cook, get rid of insect pests and remove clothing
stains, but one piece of advice I was thinking about today. When my daughter
Lauren was a toddler, my mother told me, “Never talk about your daughter in front of her and other
people.” At the time, I thought that was interesting but now I realize that she
was reminding me to never treat my child as an object and to remember that she
had ears and feelings, even at a very young age.
The
life my mother gave to me, our battles, her parenting, our differences—all contributed
to who I am. I found security in her love, strength in our battles and some
wisdom, too, along the way.
My
gift today is remembering lessons my mother taught me.
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You can find links to my other posts on this project here:
http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html
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