Simple Gifts

I've lived away from home for the larger part of seven years now.  I spent summers home during college, including the jobless and scary summer after graduating college, and made infrequent visits during breaks.  I've grown very independent; it's often for the better, sometimes for the worse.

During all that time, my mom and I have had power struggles and conflicts common to most mother-daughter relationships.

Mom is very nurturing and motherly, likes to take care of others, likes to fix things, likes to solve problems, likes to please.  Is very relational and takes pride in her interactions with others.  Is intelligent and determined and goal-oriented, and works hard to continually improve herself and her surroundings, has fierce beliefs and wears her emotions no matter how she tries to hide them.  Thrives when giving and receiving affection, encouraging others, and spending time with those she loves.

I enjoy living alone.  I like to watch sad movies by myself and openly weep, but I lock away my emotions and refuse to cry in front of others.  I share feelings hesitantly, and I tend to think my opinions and ideas less valid.  I am egotistical, but I believe the world doesn't share my high opinion of myself, so I search for its approval while pretending it doesn't matter.  I yearn to hold and be held, touch and be touched; however, I stiffen and pull away quickly whenever it happens, for I feel it somehow means I'm weak and vulnerable.  I am silly and lazy and don't like to commit to things or make plans.

I've thought for some time that, as much as I adore my mom, we were very different.  Then I started noticing things.

There's this giggle that she has, this one that sounds like she's twelve all over again, high-pitched and cute and squealy.  She lets it go whenever she's especially pleased with something, usually something simple or mundane, and she often pairs it with a speedy monkey-with-cymbals clap.  I hear her in my own young giggle every day.

She has the warmest, most easy smile you'll ever see.  It's disarming, and it's gained her friends in unthinkable environments.  People naturally gravitate toward her, asking her advice, claiming her as a second mother, searching her out at events.  I find myself smiling and charming in the style of my mother, from the grocery store to the Sunday service meet-and-greet.  I'm not a natural master of interaction like she is, but I certainly gained her relational genes.  I even think through a WWMD (What Would Mom Do) in uncomfortable situations and do my best to mimic the gracious effervescence I've observed for years.

Mom has grown into an incredible advice-giver.  Many of our power struggles in the past had to do with her knowing what to do, and me wanting nothing to do with it.  She's developed this method, though, this way of letting me know what she thinks is best and why, without forcing anything or making me feel guilty for whatever I choose.  When giving advice to a dear friend the other day, I heard my mother's trademark phrases coming out of my mouth.  It shocked me.  And thrilled me.

So many of the decisions Mom (Dad, too) has made over the years have been tough ones borne on the shoulders of solid conviction and blind faith.  Not everything has made sense; not everything has been fully thought through; yet, everything has worked out.  I am beginning a new chapter of my own, as you well know, not having all the details worked out, but having the deepest sense of direction I've known in quite some time.  It is completely against my nature to do what I have planned for the next few months.  But how can I turn my back on that direction when I know from Mom's experience and now my own that a call is a call, and we have to trust and follow God when he beckons?

I could go on, noting our shared love of art, nature, music and all things beautiful.  I could tell you how she's such a natural teacher in all areas, even when she thought she never could successfully teach anyone, and how I've seen her evolve into someone confident in that role.  I could mention her intrinsic leadership ability and her willingness to step up where things need to be done.  I could even say how I've come to enjoy the hugs that linger on or happen more often than "necessary" or how I've cried every time in the past year when I've been in the car pulling away from home, watching my parents wave and wave and wave, and blow three kisses, and hook 'em horns, and wait until I'm fully out of sight to turn away.

I could tell you that I miss my mom, and I love my mom, and I long to recapture all the time lost while I thought that we couldn't be more opposite.

I am my mother's cells, my mother's flesh and blood, her beliefs and thoughts, her advice and guidance and training, my mother's loveliness, her charm, her grace, her generosity, her care and concern, her affection and love, her legacy.

I am my mother's daughter; and though I endeavor to be my own person in all things, I swell at the thought that if I am to be like anyone, I am to be like her.  A beautiful, strong woman who touches the lives of others in all things.  Who touches my life like no other.

I love you, Mom.  So much.  Thank you for giving me the gift of you.