12
May 2002
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It's too simple to say that I wouldn't be here without my mother, not only because it's obvious but also because well, it's common sense. But, like most things that are, it's true in more ways than I can count. Not only would I not be here on this great planet we like to call Earth, but I also would most certainly not be in this great new city I now like to call home, without my mother.
Judy and Hannah - 1976 When I first got my computer I had this inspired idea to create a family site. I put up a basic construction on Geocities under what my last name would've been had my parents hyphenated. On the intro page I wrote the following: Welcome to the history of life. To the histories of my family, their lives and the stories they have laid down. The paths they chose to travel have intricately affected the roadwork of my life. And as small as this gesture may be, this is how I've chosen to honor them; how I've chosen to imprint their messages to me on something tangible - placed onto the screen where I can touch the words and see the legacy laid out before me. The regrets in my life are few; but one is that there are stories I never heard - tales I never requested to be told. Did my grandfather always want to be a doctor? Or did he dream of farming the land, or teaching, or inventing? What dreams did the fairies whisper into his boyhood ears? I feel I'm as much a H-- as I am a M------, and sometimes the disparity between my two families stuns me. Often in family trees, the woman's story is dropped; her maiden name goes unrecorded and she gets absorbed into the paternal history. There are branches of my life that shoot in directions I can't see; histories I can't claim. I don't wish that legacy upon my children, or my mother's grandchildren, or my grandmother's great-grandchildren. I want them to know that they are as much H---- as they are M-------. Just as my father is as much a Mann as he is a M------, and my mother is as much a Morrow as she is a H---. Why does the maiden get set aside? Tossed off like a winter cloak at the dawn of Spring? I've sought to embrace my entire history, and in doing so I hope to capture a journey of life. . . a journey of stories. . . to bottle up the history of a family. . . the history of life. If you are a M------ or a H---, or just a child of life's history, I ask you to write me with your stories. Tell me your dreams and your memories. Tell me the secrets of your youth. Let your fairies whisper to me as well. I abandoned the project almost as soon as I'd gotten a few pages up, mostly because building the family trees alone required more HTML knowledge than I had, and also because I'd started this Journey at the same time, and it quickly took precedence. But I still seek to build the history of it all, through photo albums and prodding questions posed to my grandmother, and in trying to expand on the stories I've already transcribed. I've written about my mother before, and I'm always afraid I sound melodramatic or overly sentimental when I try to explain exactly how precious she is to me. But there is just truly no mother like her. You wouldn't believe the number of times friends have told me how lucky I am to have her. And whenever I tell my mom that she shakes her head in disbelief and says she sometimes feels like she's failed. Like she forgot to do something, to impart some bit of crucial wisdom to G and me.
Judy and G - September 1973 But like most of us, she did, and does, her best. Lucky for me, her best is pretty great. My sophomore year at Miami my final project in my women's studies class was to interview my grandmother and mother and reflect on their lives in the context of what we'd studied all semester. I wrote: By analyzing the stories of specific women, it is easier to understand and become aware of issues that might otherwise go unheeded, because women have real, tangible stories to tell. For when issues go heeded and understood, it raises the consciousness of all women. The stark contrast between my grandmother and mother's lives is noticeable. They were born into similar circumstances - to large, rural families in the same Ohio county, but between circumstances and the progression of society, technologically and socially, their lives were drastically different. MeMe married at 15, had her first child at 16 and worked from dawn's first shimmer to dusk's last sigh, every day of her life. My mother married at 21, had her first child at 30 and while she worked, none of it required stoking a wood-burning stove or plucking chickens. My grandmother's childhood blended straight into her motherhood, carefree young memories few and far between, dreams nonexistent. My mother recounts her girlhood and you can almost smell the sugar and spice and everything nice. Her older siblings did most of the farm work, and her chores were more like play to her. Her adolesence was spent in town with only one younger sibling sharing her space. The kinds of girls they were directly affected the kind of mothers they were to become. MeMe was focused on work and doing what had to be done. She showed her love with food on the table and jam in a jar. My mom told me that her mother "loved us, but she was too busy with the work aspect to be the kind of mother I was." My mom was blessed with birth control and layaway, and most importantly, a college-educated husband with a white collar job. Circumstances afforded her the opportunity to be exactly the kind of mother she wanted to be. For her this meant "constant emotional, intellectual interaction with her kids." When I was little, everything was educational, from emptying the dishwasher to grocery shopping. There's a photo of my brother and me in the backseat of the Oldsmobile, literally covered in books. We had vocab quizzes and spelling tests, summer reading programs and flash card games. Most of this stemmed from my mother's embarrassment over her own lack of education and the way schooling was regarded in her girlhood home. Her parents expected her to get good marks "because that's what you did, not because you were going to do anything with them." They didn't help or push her. There was simply no time. The contrast in their lives and in their mothering constantly amazes me, and makes me wonder what kind of mother I'll be. At this point I really don't know, I can't even say with any sort of certainly that I'll be blessed enought to BE a mother (although I fervently pray and hope so), except I'm certain there will be love. There is, and was, always enough love.
The notify weeps for my unemployedness. The forum is going to the chapel.
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