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Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
MOTHER'S DAY IS A DAY TO RESPECT AS WELL AS TO REFLECT
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
There's something about Mother's Day (or Father's Day) that bothers me. Not only is it rather artificial and more than a little superficial ( ie. should only ONE day a year be given over to thanking your parent??) but it is also a rather sobering day as one reaches middle age.As I looked across the dinner table at my mother this past Sunday, I saw a number of things. First of all I saw an eighty-something woman who, taking everything into consideration, still retained the kind eyes, soft complexion, beauty and understanding nature that had always existed and represented all that I admired in the woman that was and still is my mother. However, I saw other things that although not necessarily negative made me stop and consider the past, the present and the future.
I wondered if every person, when they reach a certain age, look at their parents, see themselves reflected back and feel the shiver of their own mortality course through them. Has this always been the case? Did my mother do this to her mother? Did my grandmother do this with her mother and so on and so on.?? I think they did and I think each time there was an epiphany of sorts.
When we are young and even when we are not so young, we take great solace in the fact that our parents are older than we are. Always have been and always will be! We are forever their children and all of us when we are around our parents, whether we are five or sixty-five, momentarily slip into the role of the child. It may be in a reaction to what our parents say or a long standing jest or a response that was always given to a parental request or maybe it is a time to whine or complain to someone whom we know will listen and provide the correct sympathetic response.
However, there comes a time when you realize that the roles have slowly and often times without you knowing it changed. It is your parents who now need reminders, direction, and advice. It is your parents who now forget, it is your parents who whine and complain and want your sympathetic response and often look to you for approval. You are now the adult.
You are now the one who is considered to be the confident one , the decision maker and the controller. You must provide advice, support and direction to not only your own children but to your parents as well. In short, you realize that you have reached the zenith of your maturity and that the pressure is on you from both ends of the family. It is the moment that you often thought of as a young person growing up but once it arrives you realize that is not an enviable position. In fact, I would suggest to you that it is an uncomfortable, pressure-filled time that tests your patience as well as making you feel a little uncomfortable and more than a little insecure.
It is also, when one stops to carefully analyze the situation, a time when you must face your own inevitable, aging process and the realization that you, like your parents, grandparents, great grandparents etc. are not immortal. It is the time in your life when you see, as the poet T.S. Eliot so eloquently put it, "the eternal footman hold your coat and snicker.....and in short, you were afraid".
I saw "the eternal footman" hold my coat this past Sunday, heard him "snicker" and , yes, I too had a moment of fear. I saw him look back at me through my mother's eyes, in her halting movements, in her litany of things forgotten and in her aches and pains. I saw my past, my present and my future in one sudden flash of recognition.
It was not a paralyzing moment, nor was it a time for tears, or for ranting or for raving . It was simply a time to pause, stop and recognize and acknowledge another sign post along the very short road of life. It was simply a time to reflect upon my mother's life and all those mothers that went before her and to reflect upon my own position on that road.
It simply brought home the fact that we must always make the most of our time. We must enjoy our parents as much as possible, we must never take them for granted and we must never make that all so common mistake of not really appreciating them until after they are gone.
I also saw in my mother's eyes a distant, slightly hazy vision of myself for I too will, sooner than I like to imagine, become slower, forget more things, have aches and pains and will gradually lose that spark that makes me who I am. If ever there was a message "to seize the day" and use your powers while you can. it was written all over my mother's face and hopefully I can accomplish a few more things in life before my son sitting across the table from me, at some sooner-than- I-would- imagine Father's Day, stops and looks at me a second longer than he has ever done so before and has his own slightly frightening epiphany.
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
