For Mom

Yesterday, when I was driving from my home in New Hampshire back to my home in Arkansas, I saw several of those black-and-orange digital road signs that highway crews put up to warn you about the latest traffic or construction conditions. Or to remind you to drive sober. Or put down your phone.

I don’t usually cry at these signs. This one got me.

“Don’t forget to fasten your seatbelt. Love, Mom.”

Maybe I was tired, eleven hundred miles into a fifteen-hundred-mile journey. Maybe it was Mother’s Day, just around the corner. Maybe I was feeling emotional and wished I could talk to her. Maybe I just miss her. Still.

My mom died on New Year’s Eve 2022. On the 69th anniversary of the night she met my father at a New Year’s party in Philadelphia. It was an important night for her.

At her memorial, I read a poem I wrote for her, along with the following preamble.

Thank you for being here today to help celebrate our mom and grandma and your friend.

Over the past several years, I have been slowly writing a few different books. At least 2 of them I’ve dedicated to my mother. The one I’m thinking about today is called Listen to Your Mother. Based on interviews of elder women, this work highlights the wisdom, goals and achievements, successes and challenges, the joys and sorrows and unspoken longings of elder women in our society. Especially for women of my mother’s generation (but not just), their voices and knowing were often overlooked or subsumed in a predominantly man’s world. Fortunately, things have changed and continue to, and we still have a long way to go.

There is an African proverb: “When an elder dies, a library burns to the ground.” In an attempt to rescue some of the volumes of my mother’s knowledge from the rubble, the following is based on the interview we never had.

I’m sharing the poem I wrote for that day again here, on this Mother’s Day, to say “Thanks, Mom.” For my very special mother and for mothers everywhere. And for all of us, female and male alike, who have ever mothered, our own children or the children of the world, or the world itself.

Thanks, Mom. I’m still listening. 💖

What My Mother Knew
      ~ in Honor of Betty B. Drouilhet

My mother knew that a sandwich
was more fun to eat
when it had raisin eyes
and a carrot-stick mouth.

My mother knew
that Valentine’s meant something
always a red gift
at the breakfast table.
I can still feel that scratchy wool sweater.

My mother knew
how to soothe my too-early
sleeplessness and worry
with warm milk and rocking.

My mother knew
her children must learn how to swim
because she never did.

My mother knew
the woods and the garden
were medicine for the heart and soul.
Because of her, we love them too.

My mother knew
how to bake delicious Christmas cookies
and forget where she hid them
till Easter.

My mother knew
after a day of hunting driftwood
on Plum Island
Nilla wafers and Red Rose tea
would thaw us and our haul
tucked in the backseat
out of the February wind.

My mother knew
the value of education
so many of our opportunities
can be traced back to her.

My mother knew
the joys of young love
and that courageous act
of commitment.

My mother knew
how to sightread
her instant rough draft
might take us weeks
to pick out, note by note.

My mother knew
that the body wasn’t gross
or scary.
Wanted to be a doctor;
drew my blood at the kitchen table.
Took my samples to her lab.
Was she testing me for iron? Or something else?

My mother knew
how to get things done yesterday.
We procrastinated
out of self-defense
and rebellion.

My mother knew
how to knit, quilt and paint.
She made stained glass and silver jewelry.
Reupholstered furniture.
Sewed our bedspreads and our drapes.
Hooked rugs that still lay by my bed.
How easy it was to forget who softened that landing
as I jumped up and raced out the door.

My mother knew
the importance of traditions
every year
a new ornament
sparkling on the tree
building out our blue spruce with blue lights
starter kits
for our own holidays
years later
we still cherish
the handknit stockings
she made with our names
mine has a bell on Santa’s hat
which tinkled if I tried to peek.

She never made one for herself.

My mother knew
she wanted to be a mother
and though she hated
the tummy pooch left behind
and threatened liposuction
at 80
the gift of bearing three children
could not be traded.

My mother knew
how to pray
privately
her devotion to science
not dissuading her faith.

My mother knew
how to laugh.
I wish I’d heard it more often.
Only recently did I realize
my sense of humor
and laughter
sound so much like hers.

My mother knew how
to stand her ground.
Popularity wasn’t her issue.

My mother knew
how to read a room
Dad told me she could size people up
way better than he.

My mother knew
how to contribute
giving hours weeks perhaps years
of her life
to our libraries
schools and church
the league of women voters
she never took her vote
for granted.

My mother knew
people mattered
became an activist in her 70s
to stand for the rights of those
others would tromp.

My mother knew
how to get through cancer
and COVID
taught me the same
when my own life
was on the line.

My mother knew that dancing
and all the pretty ball gowns and bobbles
were worth it.

My mother knew
that marriage was hard work and
quiet tenderness
still possible
six decades in.

My mother knew
how to hold her cards close
and she still beat us in rummy
in her 90s

My mother knew
how to go on a news fast
screening information upon will
I teased her of having
selective dementia
the way some people have selective hearing
could enter her own world
appear not to know
then reengage with full sentences and clear directives
when she chose.

My mother knew
how to suck it up
when after losing
in one night
her husband, her home, and her freedom
moved into a lockdown
the memory care unit
where she never forgot
what was on the other side
of that door.

My mother knew
she was ready to go
long before her body gave up the fight.

My mother knew
that death was a thing
just like life was a thing
and that that was a thing
she was unafraid to face.

My mother knew
about the Chinese Zodiac.
Really?
So that explains all the dragons -
she who was born in the
Year of the Dragon?

How come we didn’t know this?

My mother knew
so much more
than I ever knew
she knew.

My mother knew
so much more
than she ever let on.

                 by Susan Drouilhet