MOM, gratitude, day 23

My memories of childhood include my mom taking me to the library, reading with me on the couch, quizzing me in my knowledge of the multiplication tables on the way to school, picking my brother and I up with freshly cut fruit to snack on, making sure i didn't watch too much TV over the summer, bringing me cod liver oil and vitamins in the morning, encouraging me to read the Bible, tucking me into bed with a nightly tradition of brushing my hair and a routine of questions from yours truly that she would patiently answer (including, but not limited to, "is there anything under the bed?", "is the window locked?", "what time do I have to get up?"), along with a host of other holistic and spiritually centered rituals and routines. My mom engrained in me the importance of faith and health from an extremely early age,...perhaps that is part of the reason I'm a Pilates trainer.

And my mother was no hypocrite. She practiced what she preached and boy!, as I entered the idiocy stage that is also known as being a teenager, my mother seemed to preach a lot!!! :) All of the well intentioned efforts and loving contributions into my life that had been sweet and comforting as a child became burdensome and annoying during those teenage years. My dear mother suffered many an undeserved snide comment or dismissal from me as I stubbornly adopted the common teenage assumption that my mother had lost her mind and was intent on running my life with an insane controlling agenda.  During those years there was a lot of huffing and puffing on my part, several slammed doors, many a loud outburst, and a shameful amount of ungrateful and selfish ignoring.  And yet, if I am to be honest,....even though I kicked and screamed through those years of painful parenting, there was always a small part of me that still recognized the love that was at the heart of her pleas. I always knew that she loved me. And although it was accompanied by much resistance, I almost always found myself obeying her wishes and following the course she dictated. Such was the result of the earlier years of investment and time that she had spent proving her love and affection for me. The result of her loving investments during the years when I was young enough to soak it up  hungrily and without question afforded her the knowledge that her parenting in later, more challenging years, would pay off. Take note! The seed of love always produces fruit if it is watered and nurtured. Although you may not be the one to bear witness to the results, take heart in the knowledge that love melts the hardest heart and it never fails to make a difference.

Of course in later years, as the realities of young adulthood set in, my perspective again changed. As the college years came to a close and my life was rocked by the end of my first marraige I had the opportunity to reconnect with my parents. Under those grim circumstances I took up residence with my folks. I once again found myself butting heads with my mother but soon found the blows waning. Because with the growing horror that came in realizing that we were basically cut from the same grain and that I was, despite my best rebuttals and denials, the spitting image of my mother in almost every way that counted, I began to reconsider her intelligence and the idea that maybe I hadn't been right ALL of the time ALL of those years. Maybe she knew what she had been doing all those rocky years. And maybe she was really a very cool lady. :) In part I'm jesting. However  there is nothing like realizing you are exactly like your mother to begin to show you that she is not only a parent with the authority to ruin your Saturday nights but is also a human being just like you; another woman who used to be a girl who is doing her best to figure out her own journey here on earth.

Nowadays I will tell anyone who will hear me that I adore my mother. I now recognize with increasing conviction that she is an amazing diamond cut from the rough. The love that shines brilliantly through her is inspiring, comforting, and endearing. I love Gloria Ruth Ivy for the mother that she was to me all of the years of my life and for the virtuous, silly, tender, hard working, patient, and loyal friend and woman that she is apart from that parental identity. She is one of my life's role models. She is, to me, the ideal mother. And she is, without a doubt, my favorite lady. God gave me one of the greatest blessings in the world when He allowed me to be the daughter to this amazing woman.  Any  beauty and love and light that flow through me are in large part a reflection of the love that she invested in me for all of those years. From Mommy & Me piano lessons to verbal brawls in the hall to being the shoulder I wept on when my marriage dissolved, my mother has always been present. She allowed me a carefree childhood, she tightened the reigns on my bridle when my teenage vision was reckless and uncertain, and she carried my heart through tragedy with the hours she spent in prayer on her knees.  I love you, Mom. You are my gratitude today and every day.