The back of the marred minivan shut with a clunk. The back end was filled with suit cases, random bags filled with paper towels and swifters, a dirty glass container just emptied of mashed potatoes, an electric piano, rice cooker and an air fryer...One dorm room cleaned out; first year at University done.
The brothers laughed and chuckled as they sized each other up, the younger had gotten a tad taller again. It had been only a few weeks since they had seen each other, but one was on his own now, at least in monthly increments. They boys were blabbering away, each wanting to tell the other how different they are now. 'They had shared a room for the right amount of years', she thought to herself. They argued about whose playlist was better until one pulled the ace out and said, "Do you want to hear my new arrangements?" Slapped on the table as a sure winner.
She turned the engine key, it felt like putting on her old favorite pair of black boots, better for gardening these days than a night out with the ladies on a random Friday night when they would try to forget age was upon on them, but never who they were. The van was worn in, sturdy and taken care of, but mostly beaten to hell. It was nice to have the sound of her children fill the space that felt so empty these days. It had been the carriage of choice, as she drove them to and fro telling them stories of the past and lessons for the future.
She didn't get much time with them much anymore. Her daughter was on an adventure looking for herself, not wandering far from the nest yet but feet wet. She was just like her mother at the age, full of fire and creativity with a concern for the world as she planned a better future, honing and never afraid of a difficult subject...She would say, "but please, no math". Her boys she ate up when she got the chance. They were so tall it was hard to see them as the little guys they used to be when they would cuddle up next to her at the end of the day or grab on to her hand after school and tell her everything and anything. The boys were turning to men, she enjoyed seeing that they still didn't do their hair everyday...and hoped they always loved swords.
She had done everything she could for them to give them a well balanced diet of nutrition for their body, mind, and soul. She was so very grateful for the chance to be a mom but a mom three times to three amazing people had not been an easy road. She crossing her fingers three times she did some of it right.
She had carried them when they were babies all the same against her chest everywhere until she couldn't and then she strapped them to her back and pushed the bigger two up and down the hills and streets of Chatan Town, Miyagi, and the sea wall stopping in places to try new foods you think might be sweet but are really octopus. Showing them all the sights and sounds, as she would tell them stories of the battle of Okinawa and the people that lived there. She knew they were too young to understand but also knew it would get tucked away in their tiny brains for later if they needed it.
She made sure they knew if they needed her she was a call away since the days before they had words.
It all felt so sudden, from full thrust to a fast stop. Making sure they brushed their teeth to hoping they brushed their teeth to knowing they didn't brush their teeth and they know better and there is nothing she could do about it. The frustrating moments of, "Are you going to carry your coat or wear your coat?" moments to "I'm so glad I had my coat mom, I hit the curb and busted the tire, and it was freeeeeezing!"
...
The moments with her children now were out of body experiences as time swirled around her as she saw past present and future all at once in every dimension available to her.
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There is a moment in time when we know...we have 'grown up'. Children think often they are 'grown up' before they actually meet with...maturity, an understanding of things, not just knowing. It happens at all different ages and in truth it doesn't always happen. "I'm waiting, and waiting, and waiting..."
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It was the 80s when the economy had, as they might say politely, pooped a pickle.
We were living in Florida, watching the space shuttle take off and blow up, helicopters and C-130's fly over head like the old days but this time we could walk to the beach.
My dad was between jobs and my parents had started a small business. Two kids away at University, one teenage girl that should probably never be left alone, and boy with hope.
My mom had one pair of jeans that year.
She worked every day. Her finger tips burned from the hot glue she would use to hold together the most beautiful silk flower arrangements. My mom is a brilliant marketer and business woman, not to mention artist (I know she's better than me just like my daughter is also a better artist than me, they are exceptional), cook (I always think I'm good until I sit at her table), not to mention covert operator for an underground movement of freedom fighters. I would watch with glory as this little woman in a pinafore would man handle an antique armoire from one corner to another. I hated wearing my pinafore, I was a dumb teenager; I knew it was brilliant even then though, an old fashioned frock that kept your clothes clean, because 'shop business' is a dirty business sometimes. Weekends I would help out if she needed it and I always ended up with nostrils assaulted by mulberry oil, after awhile you appreciated it because sometimes that was the only sale that day, time were tight. Years of hard work and as my mother would say "location, location, location"....like a good air traffic controllers wife. My moms shop was the best shop, people will read this and if they knew, The Country Life, they are nodding their heads in agreement.
When we would go to Market in Atlanta or Dallas it was awing to see her weave in and out booths, stalls and showrooms looking for that thing*...and she always would find it, then when ordering, she put a clause in her contract that what ever it was it couldn't be sold in any other business within a certain mile radius. I would watch her plan in her mind and order what would come when so new and different would fill the shop to never bore a customers eyes, or ears. ...An ode to the dulcimer hammer I could probably write.
This is the same woman that took us, her 4 kids, to Hong Kong for a couple of weeks, by herself as we returned to reside in the US. It was an old school tour, where you stay and visit place to place, this is not a vacation, it is a tour. She walked us through the streets and piers of Hong Kong as we got to choose our own eel from the bucket if we desired. The four of us behind her like a herd of cats that knew what they were doing. We always add a wink on that one as we were delayed getting to Hawaii because her made for her snake skin shoes wouldn't be done in time; they had been made from a snake with soft scales the colour of a storm over a land of ash.
Also the same woman that was told, here are your new diggs honey, as she looked on to see filthy old army barracks on Roberts Field in Liberia that no one had lived in for years; with 2 small children and a baby as she listened to the drums beat down the river. Welcome home. She had to deal with bot flies and very large poisonous snakes that even the locals didn't want to get near. It was the tamed jungle of West Africa.
When we lived in Rosedale, New York for a short time, that's when my mom would grind sirloin for burgers because their neighbors upstairs worked for a family* and it was a better price.
The first apartment in the first building, that's where I grew up. The grey walls for years mom had to live with as she fought to be able to change them. The macramé hanging tables to add some personality to the furniture we were given. The dull terrazzo floors that when we left were the envy of the other ladies as they wondered how my mom did it. "Put your socks on kids, it's sliding time."
My mothers life experiences are the ones that make a woman wise. She knows the ways of all the peoples. She speaks one language and all of them.
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My mother at 23/4 was traveling on a plane with my brother and sister. They are 11 months apart and my brother was a 'handful', all the time. My sister on the other hand was not and with her head of curly golden locks and cute little button nose the nun next to my Mother says, "let me help you..." and sits with my sister on her lap happily playing with the Sisters rosary. As the story is told my sister yanked a touch to hard on the Sisters rosary and it broke and out of the perfect little doll mouth, "shitdamnsonofabitch".
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To my children's biological mothers,
It's you I think of on mothers day.
I pray every day I've done it right; I know that we all together made a choice for a better future.
Thank you for the gift of life.
Thank you for Motherhood.
