My mom gave lots of advice -- most of it good, as I'm now able to admit. I didn't always feel that way, though. In fact, for most of my adult life, I arrogantly resented her unsolicited words of wisdom. (How wrong I was.)
Ah, Mom...
Today would be her 83rd birthday, but we won't be celebrating with her. She died 12 years ago. Contrary to what I've read in self-help bereavement books, I shouldn't be able to remember the sound of her voice, but I do. I can also remember many of her words...
"Hold your head up high, and act like you have every right to be there." She would say this whenever one of us felt shy about having to step outside of our comfort zone -- i.e., home.
"Don't worry what other people might think of you. Just be yourself." Again, when we were feeling intimidated about having to speak up for ourselves.
"Make your bed and do the breakfast dishes first thing. Then, if someone asks you to go someplace, you can go with a clear conscience." (Of course, it went without saying that you should also apply fresh lipstick and make sure you had on clean underwear.)
Most of all, I remember the last words of advice Mom gave me. They stung, because I knew she was right. They came after she'd "almost" died in the hospital.
My sisters and brothers and I all agreed that Mom must have gone someplace the rest of us had never been that day, because she came back to us a changed person. Where there had been sort of an invisible armor around her, making her seem untouchable, she was now open and childlike. She looked at us in a new way, too. Not as though life with six kids had beaten her down, but as if she were really seeing us and appreciating each one of us for who we were. We were all happy to have the opportunity to get to know this new, softer version of our mom.
Giddy with relief at still having her with us, we were all there in her not-so-intensive-care room, trying to outdo each other in our efforts to make Mom laugh. And we were all winning. Then I missed something that Mom had said...
"What?" I asked.
She looked at me -- really looked at me -- and said, not unkindly,
"You should listen the first time."
At that moment, I could feel how exasperating it must have been for her, all those years of me rushing ahead, my mouth immediately following my mind, never being fully in whatever the moment was. I felt ashamed and sorry. But I know that she forgave me. And I have tried -- really, really tried, sometimes -- to follow the advice that my mom gave me just a few days before she died.
And even when I fail, I'm glad that I can still remember when she told me.
