With thanks to Mom

It’s 6 o’clock on Thanksgiving morning. I could’ve slept in a little later. But here I am typing. Anyway, 6 a.m. isn’t all that early. I suspect somewhere in her new house in Winchester, my Mom has been shuffling around for hours. Squinting at an email on her iPad, sipping a cup of coffee. Mine’s brewing now.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Probably because it is my mom’s favorite holiday.

The day of the two F’s. Family and food. 

She loves both. So do I, because of her.

Growing up, Mom was the maestro of Thanksgiving. Conjuring up all the warm smells, all the comforting flavors. Making countless trips to Giant for one last thing she forgot. Kneading endless batches of dough into pillowy, golden-topped dinner rolls. Rolling out pie crust after pie crust, wiping her brow from the effort, leaving streaks of flour across her forehead in the process. Mashing all the wonderful, buttery starchy things: the potatoes and the sweet potatoes and the turnips.

Every Thanksgiving morning I loved to watch her mix up up the stuffing- a recipe-less concoction that had all manners of things thrown into it: homemade bread she’d saved up in the freezer, celery, onions, sausage, apples, eggs, seasoning and a teaspoon of divinity- all of that would be jammed into dress the giant turkey that would feed our giant family.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade served as a soundtrack to the whole morning. That and mom’s shuffling feet and the occasional “now what did I do with the [insert missing ingredient/utensil here]” or an “Oh shoot!” when something was spilled or dropped. (The dog always loved Thanksgiving, too. Always underfoot in the kitchen. Always waiting for the manna from the heavens to rain down so she could scarf it up off the floor.)

Things that had been stowed in the china cabinet since Easter were pulled out. The fancy silver that was folded in fleecy envelopes and the good china with its snowy village scene and leaves and grass scrolled in gray-greens around the edges. Candles and stemware and tablecloths.

Dad would pick up my grandmother from her apartment a half hour away- she’d arrive in a cloud of perfume bringing along with her bags of cheese puffs for my sister and I, stacks of old Vogues and always a pecan pie.

When the food smells crescendoed in the kitchen, Mom would direct us to set bowls and platters and dishes full of food on the table. And then we’d all find our seats- Mom, Dad, Nanny and whichever of my five siblings were local at the time. By the time I was in high school, there were babies and toddlers underfoot, too. Grandchildren for Mom to feed fresh whipped cream, or, better yet, ice cream to when it came time to eat all the pies. 

My absolute favorite memories of Thanksgiving are my Mom, my sisters and I in the kitchen doing the dishes, divvying up leftovers and putting food away after the table had been cleared. We’d sing and tease each other. And laugh and laugh and laugh. Mom’s laugh- ringing from deep within her chest- was the loudest of all of us. Still is.  

Every year for decades, Mom directed one sibling or another to look for this or wipe down that. All the while she chopped, stirred, tidied and bustled.

Bustle. “To move or act with a great show of energy.”

Unless she is asleep (usually by 8 or 8:30… 9 at the latest) mom is bustling. When she lived in Colorado, we would regularly get texts from her at 6 a.m. EST. Which means it was 4 a.m. Mountain Time. “Oh, I couldn’t sleep. I’m making some coffee. The sun will be up in a little bit.”

She’s always been that way. This little person poking around from room to room- looking for her lost glasses or flipping through a Bon Appetit for kale salad recipe, dusting my dad’s clocks, jotting off notes to friends or writing letters to whoever needs to whatever organization or business needs to be corrected or notified (“The power of the pen!” she tells me each time she mails another… I’m sure it will surprise no one that Verizon has been a recipient of many of her polite-but-firm grievances about this or that.) She doesn’t hesitate to write letters of appreciation either.

I laugh and maybe roll my eyes at her “Power of the Pen!” mantra. And of course, that makes me a hypocrite. Because, clearly, I believe in the power of words, too.

Months ago, I sat down and interviewed my Mom about her life. Over the years, I’d come to realize so many of our family conversations revolved around Dad and his unique childhood, challenging career and all his many hobbies. He seemed to have more stories or, at least, they were more compelling to us as kids- the years he lived on a farm in Maine and the years he lived in New York City. His job as aerospace engineer. His extensive knowledge of obscure topics ranging from orchids to model trains to fountain pens to forest flora and fauna to homemade fireworks.

Mom has always sat benignly at his side. Deferring to Dad. Letting him do the storytelling while she cleared the table and got the dessert.

Somewhere in the years I spent as a stay-at-home mom I had this epiphany that I didn’t know about Mom. I didn’t know much about her childhood or her aspirations. What it was like meeting Dad and how she felt about becoming a mother. What regrets she had. What she wished she’d done differently. What she was most proud of. She’s always been humble and self-effacing. Never seeking out attention. As a child and a young adult, I think I decided that she just must not have had much to offer.

But then I became a mom. And I found myself disappearing into this one-dimensional version of myself. No more was I a journalist who made art and played soccer and read voraciously and knew about indie music. All those other identities were sorted of sifted away until I was Just Mom.

It’s only been within the past 10 years that I realized how for much of my life I’d only seen Mom as a one-dimensional version, too. I didn’t see her as someone with an interior life. Someone who was more than the rote duties she performed. And that bummed me out. And needed to be corrected.

When I sat down with Mom earlier this year, she patiently answered all of my questions- about her family, best friends, first loves and childhood hobbies. I asked about her relationship with her parents and about meeting dad. About her favorite memories and the things she’d do differently and the things she still hoped to do. I asked her about becoming a mom and how motherhood shaped her. I asked her what made her laugh and what made her proud and goals she still had for herself.

I asked a lot of questions.

And by the end of the inquisition, I had a lot more information about Mom.

The weird part was, I don’t know that I felt like I really knew her any better than I had before I asked all the questions.

But I also realized that was because I already knew Mom.

I should probably explain.

But I might be a little roundabout in my explanation.

Many, many years ago– maybe almost two decades ago– I read “The Tao of Pooh.” In it, Benjamin Hoff explains the principles of Taoism through the character of Winnie-the-Pooh.

Winnie-the-Pooh is not fussy. He’s straight forward. He doesn’t overthink. He doesn’t dwell. He lives from one moment to the next, grateful for the honey he finds, unburdened by the honey he’s missing. He’s not particularly hurried or harried. He’s just himself. It’s the only way he knows to be.

From Hoff’s perspective, Pooh’s way of moving through the world embodied two principles of Taoism- Wei wu wei or “effortless doing” and P’u, which literally means an uncarved block.

“The essence of the principle of the Uncarved Block is that things in their original simplicity contain their own natural power, power that is easily spoiled and lost when that simplicity is changed,” Hoff writes. 

This book came to mind after I talked to Mom.

In so many ways, she mirrors the Uncarved Block. It’s not that she’s unintelligent or not curious, it’s that her intelligence doesn’t seem to burden her in the way it can burden the rest of us. She hasn’t spent her life chasing down accolades, power, money or fame. She finds contentment in quiet moments and quiet things. She recognizes that joy is a well inside herself. Not this thing she must seek in some lifelong quest. 

When asked to reflect on her youth, Mom’s memories aren’t of the bitter things.

She grew up in Upstate New York, the oldest of seven children. Her name is Kathryn. But one of her little sisters couldn’t pronounce “Kathy” so she became “Tassie.” 

She recalled her mother was a hard worker, but always sour (which is kind of how I remember Nanny, too). 

“I really think she was depressed her whole life. Nothing was ever good enough for her. She never seemed to like her state in life,” Mom said.

Maybe it’s not such an accident that Mom is sort of the flip side of her mother.

Her father (Poppy, as we called him) was much easier to get along with she said, “But you didn’t want to cross him, especially if you were sassing. You’d get the belt.” 

She remembered how if she got in trouble with her dad, her sister Susie, just 13 months younger than her, would tell him, “Don’t hit her, don’t hit her, she can’t take it. Hit me instead.”

(Just for the record, the belt aside, Poppy was the beloved patriarch of that side of my family. I still miss his the way he called me “Sue-Sue” and his hugs and his homemade waffles and the way he smelled of after shave.)

Her best friends were Susie and a neighbor girl. In the summer she loved playing dolls in the backyard and in the winter she loved going ice skating and building igloos. She remembered the time she spent working as a candy striper at a hospital in Binghamton, N.Y. where she and her friend Mary Ann would make each other treats during their shifts- she always liked the root beer floats.  

Her dream job was to be a nurse, but she worried that she wouldn’t be able to tolerate the sight of blood. Once she realized she could handle dissecting a frog in high school biology, she knew she could handle being a nurse. Later, she went to nursing school and then had a successful career as a nurse. With six children of her own, she had to tend to all manners of injury and bodily fluids and dysfunctions.

Speaking of which, she always knew she wanted a big family. 

“Don’t ask me why, being the oldest of seven,” she said.

She still remembers the day she had my oldest brother, Mike. She was 22 and living in Tucson, Ariz. where my dad was going to grad school. It was the farthest she’d ever been home. She was by herself– dads weren’t allowed in delivery rooms at the time and the rest of her family was across the country. Having had three babies myself with Brad and various sisters in attendance, the idea of my mother being so young and so utterly alone while laboring with her first baby makes me sad.

“It was the way it was,” she said. “I wasn’t scared.”

Michael arrived at 9:30 on a Monday morning. 

“He was a good baby. So cute with that blond hair,” she said. The whole time I was asking questions she played with Annie on the living room floor. Her love of babies has been a constant in her 70-plus years. 

Mom liked being a mom. She says it was easier than it is today. “Today you weigh everything,” she said. Back when she and Dad first started their family he was in the military. They were far from home and that’s just the way it was. She just went with the program.

See, it’s that quality. That quiet, resolute acceptance of things as they are. 

Mom’s always just gone with the program. Even as the program moved her from her childhood home to Arizona to Florida to Ohio to Virginia to California and back to Virginia and to Colorado and then Virginia again. Even as the program had her taking care of six children, often on her own, while Dad traveled for work. Even as the program had her caring for her ailing mother-in-law while also working and managing a family. Even as the program involved adult children moving back home, sometimes multiple times. Even as the program had her facing the heartache of children battling addictions, depression, anxiety, abuse and divorce.

Motherhood taught her patience, she said. Though I have to believe that was inborn in her. Motherhood taught her she wasn’t in control of anything. And that kids have good perspectives and tell it like it is. That they bring smiles to your face.

I asked Mom about one place she’d like to visit before she died. She told me she wanted to go swimming in Lake Skaneatlas- one of the Finger Lakes. A place she visited many times. A place Poppy used to take us when we’d come up and visit in the summer. 

Her response made me pause. And made me smile. And made me grateful that she is my mother. That happiness doesn’t have to be far-flung, exotic locales. It’s attainable. It’s a dive in the lake you swam in as a kid.

I asked Mom what achievement she was most proud of in her life so far. 

She told me she was proud of staying married for so long– she and Dad celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary this summer. That felt like an accomplishment. 

She paused, then added, “I think for the most part just being content with life.”

See what I mean? It’s that. 

That’s P’u. And Pooh.

Talking to mom made me realize that all those biographical details were just clutter for what I already knew about Mom. What you can’t help but knowing about Mom from the minute you meet her.

What Mom contains in her broad smile and the twinkle in her eyes. In the way her hair might stick out at odd angles and how she laughs at the way it sticks out at odd angles. In the way she can watch babies play for hours. In the way she always makes sure to send Thank You notes. In the way she always makes sure to bake cookies for neighbors who are having a rough time or just because she likes baking and likes sharing and cookies are so delicious. In the way she delights in wildflowers. In the way she loves the pair of pink Vans covered in “Peanuts” characters I got for her for Christmas one year. In the way her presence is easy and uncomplicated.

Years ago, when Mom was working in maternity, her supervisor gave her a special assignment: A couple had just delivered a baby they knew was not going to survive more than a day. Mom was asked to sit in that heartbreaking room as these new parents embraced the expansive joy of their child while simultaneously grieving their child’s impending death. She just had to be there. Be the window dressing. The question answerer. The errand runner. The monitor. The witness.

It was no accident Mom was chosen for this job. She was chosen because of who she is. Her ability to anticipate just what is needed. Her humility. Her kindness. Her quiet strength. Her enveloping warmth that wraps around you like a vigil or a celebration- whatever the occasion calls for.

“The masters of life know the way, for they listen to the voice within them, the voice of wisdom and simplicity, the voice that reasons beyond cleverness and knows beyond knowledge,” Hoff writes.

My Mom knows beyond knowledge. Though she would never say that of herself. 

Today, on Mom’s favorite holiday, I’m thankful for her. 

I’m grateful for the way she’s shown me just by being who she is, how to move through this life with grace.

“The wise are who they are. They work with what they’ve got and do what they can do.”

Happy Thanksgiving.