*Dedicated to my mom who shows me how every day. Happy Mother’s Day. I love you forever*
The other day I FaceTimed my mom to check up on her.
Being that she is 74, and not one to be told what to do, I have taken to messaging her often throughout this pandemic to make sure she is staying put, and washing her hands, and not doing her standard hugging of every person she sees.
Me checking to see that she is where she says…My, how those tables have turned.
Our video call that day went something like this:
ME: “Why are you wearing a necklace?”
HER: “I’m still getting dressed and putting on make-up every day. I’m not rolling over and dying yet. No one can make me.”
ME: “You need to get with the rest of us.
This is Wednesday, right? Wait. Is it Wednesday? Yes. Wednesday should be day 3 of the same pair of pajama pants. No one is wearing NECKLACES anymore.”
HER: “Never. I’m still living my life.”
ME: “I don’t make the rules of quarantine.
We are supposed to all be in sports bras.”
HER:
ME:
HER: “You should stop eating sugar. I have.”
ME: “That’s not happening. We have actual Cookie Hour in our house now.”
HER: “That’s not healthy.”
ME: “What’s not healthy is all the coffee you drink.
YOU should drink more water and take vitamins. How about you keep a log of the water you’re drinking and get back to me.
You’re not still going places, are you, with all your necklaces?
Don’t make me recite my contamination flow chart information again.”
HER: “You’re bossy. Also, *sarcastic*
you must have become a doctor since the last time I checked, you’re so knowledgeable, Dr. Green.”
ME: “You’re not going to listen to me on any of the advice I’ve given during this conversation, are you?”
HER: “Are YOU?”
UNISON: “Probably not.”
ME: “Same time again tomorrow, then?”
HER: “Yes. I look forward to it.”
We both smiled and exited the call.
I shook my head and smiled thinking of her afterwards.
Of her long lineage of non-compliance.
The women in her family all born with their hands on their hips, and a look like they were ready to draw.
My mom is a fighter, though she wouldn’t agree.
She doesn’t see what I see.
And in her fight have been a thousand lessons that have all been passed down to me.
To give not just from excess,
but when it costs you something.
To always think before you speak.
To live out your love in your doing.
To look for beauty hidden in things and people that might easily just get tossed aside.
Prior to our move here to our tiny house in the country, back to the same street where I had grown up,
my mom lived with us for more than a decade.
It was not always an easy arrangement,
but it was what was best for us all at the time.
She was newly divorced,
and not so newly lonely.
I yearned for her help with my brood.
She had watched me grow,
and now I would get to watch as she changed beautifully before my eyes, too.
The girls all grew being able to just go into her bedroom at the top of the stairs.
The scent of her face wash was something they knew.
The years went on and our lives further intertwined, making the announcement nearly two years ago that she would be moving up north to my brother’s one that felt painful
and hard to chew.
I cried nearly every day at the thought of the changes.
Sometimes different is the hardest thing to do.
The morning we loaded up our separate moving vans,
her going one way and us another for the first time in so long, was a quiet one.
Like we didn’t know where to even start.
We’d kept busy all morning.
Too much to do to really face what we we’re actually facing.
But suddenly, the dreaded moment came
when she asked me to call the girls in from outside, and I knew it was time to say our goodbyes.
She needed to get on the road.
The blasts stopped from the front yard where the girls had been blowing a horn,
and I heard their feet coming towards us;
each one looking up at me as they passed like they wanted help in knowing how to deal with it,
only I had no help to give because I wanted help with it, too.
She pulled each of them close to her and whispered something private to each one.
I’m sure the very thing each one needed most to hear,
because she is good at that.
Chloe cried the hardest, and held on long,
and then as I snapped a picture capturing the moment, my mom said quietly,
“You need to show your mom.”
Not knowing what I was about to be shown,
I watched curiously as Chloe reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny slip of paper.
Before she unrolled it, my mom explained:
“When I took her out for our special date the other night, we went to Chinese food, and this was her fortune.”
That is when Chloe unrolled the words that I then knew were not only meant for her,
but for me, from my mother, and maybe from God as well.
“Proceed with Confidence.”
And that is what we attempted to do all that day.
As the boxes were carried by,
and the stacks were made,
and we couldn’t find that certain thing.
It’s what Chloe and I did as we drove a load to the new house just us two, and as we gripped dusty hands and both cried streaks down dirty faces, nervous to face a new life.
As the radio played songs about fighting off fear.
As the concrete and traffic suddenly turned into grassy hills and the Clydesdale pasture.
That night we proceeded with confidence as we lay our heads in the unfamiliar rooms,
and as we head every unfamiliar sound.
We proceed with confidence because just like that paper was cradled and presented there to me in my daughter’s hands,
so was this amazing opportunity of an answered heart’s prayer gently offered to me to return to my childhood home,
and to begin our new life here.
This little house in the country just next to where I grew up, and her voice still echoes in the trees
calling me in for dinner,
telling me to smile for a photo on the lawn.
I hear her voice as I parent my own children in this same little tucked-away space.
Bikes on the same street.
Rain puddling right where it used to.
I hear it as I lead them through this time when the world feels so unsure.
When things feel so out of place.
Proceed with confidence every day.
My mother taught me how to keep moving on.
To hold my chin up whether I’m in a sports bra a necklace, a moving van, or a
rapidly changing world,
and I hope this is something I am teaching my own daughters, too.
Proceed with confidence –
No matter what comes your way.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
