Things My Momma Taught Me

Mom loved flowers-especially orchids and roses

Mom striking a pose for the camera man (dad) at Mo'omomi beach, Molokai

A prompt my cousin had on Facebook earlier this week about posting something your mom would always say triggered a cascade of memories of 'mom-isms'.

Mom (Emily Anne Frese was her maiden name) grew up in the midwest-Ashley Illinois to be exact. Consequently, she had a lot of sayings that must've been said all the time there in the midwest. I think it was her way of passing along advice and philosophy to me without having to explain too much. 

Here's some of what I remember:

-Don't cry over spilt milk.

-You can always add, but you can't subtract (in seasoning dishes while cooking-this was particular to adding salt)

-That's the way the cookie crumbles

-There's a silver lining in every dark cloud

-It takes two to fight

-If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all (and boy, how I wish that was practiced today!)

There were 6 kids under one roof-four boys and two girls (my sister was the youngest) so the boys would get into rumbles (and sometimes I would be a target). Mom always said, 'if you kids are going to fight, go outside and fight'. She never really refereed us which, in hindsight, almost seems odd! 

The thing is, all of her sayings had to do with a philosophical outlook where optimism was one of the main components. And forgiveness. Whether it is for yourself or someone else. I really got to see her walk that walk when my dad left her. She was devastated, betrayed and hurt beyond belief. Over time, she learned to rise above it and move on. 

In my eyes, she left me with so many 'tools' to get through life with. Most especially, her faith.

As moms,we are not perfect. In fact, we are all very flawed. We have to 'wing it' every second of the day in raising our children. There is no instruction book on how to be a mom. We make mistakes. We have melt downs. We don't always set a good example. But, I think we all try to the best of our ability to do what we think is right (and not knowing if it really is).

Bottom line though is LOVE. All you need is love. All you need to do is to love your child be it one or many. Unconditionally. I am so grateful that I got that from my mom. I hope I've done a good job of doing that for my son.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!