“A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” – Tenneva Jordan
My mother was a child and grew to maturity during The Great Depression, an earth shattering period punctuated and made worse by the death of her father. My grandmother had to learn the lessons of hardship and sacrifice quickly with three young children and four older boys to look after. In fact, she faced a lifetime of troubles by the time her own young life was snuffed out only three years later.
If you asked her children they would say the most important tools in their mother’s survival kit were her music, her sense of humor, and her imagination…she loved the simple pleasures. When she grew angry or sad she sat at the piano, playing hymns and singing until she felt better. When her children were hungry she made their meager meals more satisfying by playing word games or telling stories. One time she woke them in the middle of the night just so they could go to a fire. When they got home they feasted on cinnamon toast in warm milk before returning to their shared bed.
Mama knew that her mother often went without food so her children could have more but her doing without was always masked and made bearable with music, laughter and small adventures. In fact, laughter through tears became my mother’s own signature as she related the stories of her childhood to my brother and me. Now that look back I ery time we had fried chicken for dinner she always said she preferred the wing!
Sacrifice! We never noticed but it was the most precious tool in mom’s survival kit.
Wishing all of you Moms a very special Mother’s Day…from all of us at Post Scripts.