My Mom is Wise

It's days like today when I just need to call my Mom and ask her to repeat to me, EXACTLY and verbatim, what she told me some 34 years ago, upon my graduation from high school.  They were wise words, and I try to dredge up the exact quote once or twice every year, because what she said rang true then and now.  My recollection of her words, though, fall far short of her eloquence.  But here goes:

A mother should celebrate her child's steps forward and upwards and out of the nest.  One should not boo-hoo when your baby hits Kindy or when graduates from high school.  One should not shudder when the offspring embarks on travels to places unknown.  One should celebrate these marvelous steps forward.  There are mothers whose children will not be capable of these forward steps.  My mother had a friend who thrilled when her child, a teenager, spoke his first words.

When I became a mother, I held my Mom's words close to my heart.  They were a comfort to me as my kids got older and bolder and tried new things and, as my Mom once pointed out about my son, as he severed the "maternal" umbilical cord.  (Harsh words those were, but truer than true about letting my son grow up.)

My Mom is wise.  I am sure some of it comes from birthing and raising five of us.  I think most of it just comes from Mom being wise.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. 

I received two wonderful phone calls today, Mother's Day, from my daughter on the East Coast, and from my son on the West Coast.  And to add cream to the Mother's Day Corn Flakes, bright and early this morning that Spouse o' Mine and I drove to the University of Kansas campus to witness our older daughter, The Grad Student, at her hooding ceremony.   

Gillian Louise Armstrong:

No longer "The Grad Student"!

 

And so, there she goes, out of grad school and into a summer of traveling western China - before she embarks on her new life in curatorial/museum biz.  

Again, my wise mother:  "I recall having a daughter who spent one summer traveling to Iceland and Europe, all by herself.  I think Gillian will be fine."

OK. The sage speaketh.  

And I?  Guilty as charged.  

(Iceland was magnificent, I have to say.)