We all have a Mother.
And my Mother gave me gifts that I will forever hold dear to my heart.
I don't know how to begin to explain the gifts that I will speak of, so bear with me as I try...
We lived at my Grandparents seafood tavern on the water in N.J. when I was very young.
I can recall all the fun things she did with my Sister and I. Giving us large metal pizza pans to use as saucers in the snow to slide down the hill by the underpass into the parking lot. when customers were few.
She taught me how to have fun, and how to swim. To pick up shells and look at nature. How to find beauty all around me.
When my little Sister was born, I was taught how to love and accept that I was no longer the baby, and know that she still had plenty of love for all three of her daughters.
After we moved from the Tavern, I was taught responsibility and trust.
Before I was old enough to go to school she taught me how to love art. She oil painted and would let me watch. She let me make things with her, and was patient in her teaching. I was taught the beauty of antiques, and the fun of finding treasures that someone no longer wanted.
I was taught early the fun reality of chores. Yes, I hated her at times ~ thinking I had the meanest Mother in the world. Not knowing that she was instilling good habits that would carry into my Adulthood and also passed onto my own children.
I clearly remember the day our President Kennedy was shot and killed. That day my Mother cried as if she was losing her own brother. That day she taught me compassion for people I did not personally know.
She trusted me to walk to school, and back home. Trust and freedom was taught when I was allowed to go in our little town to play, with the only rule that I was to be home at the time I was told. And if for some reason I would be late, to ask my friends or my Aunt for use of their phone and call home, ~ Responsibility.
When we moved from the town to the woods, I was taught how to be content with my own company. I learned how to start knowing myself and what it was I was most interested in, and encouraged to explore those interests.
I was also able to find joy in simple things. Things taught to me such as the joy of bottle digging at old bottle dump sites found in the woods. To see how people lived by what they threw away. And to learn how much things have changed through time. A history lesson found and taught as it was unearthed. I have those bottles displayed and decorating my windows today.
I learned how to love and make beauty around me with what we had. Sew our dolls some clothes from pretty scraps of material. Because we couldn't afford to buy store made clothes.
To draw and paint with different styles and materials. To find beauty and value in many art forms, such as through dance, music, theater, literature.
My Mother gave me the Gift of feeling wealthy, even though we lived a simple and average life.
She taught me to care for those I loved, and to show respect for my elders and those I came across in my life and would have to co-exist with. Teachers, friends, mentors, people in the public world of business, law enforcement, etc.
As my Mother aged, she taught me by example the Love of a caregiver. To stick through good and bad times, with grace and patience. And how to continue that love until the end.
I could go on and on I am sure. For her gifts to me were Grand and never ending.
I miss her today, but I feel her presence in everything I do, every day. I can still feel her love, and hear her words. And for all her Love ~ I will be forever grateful.
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I found it strange, yet such a coincidence that my Tarot was this card for the day when I chose to
write about my Mother.
