Thanks Mom!

Lately, my hands have begun reminding me of my mother’s.  The youthful elasticity that my hands enjoyed in my teenage years and early 20’s has begun to release a bit.  I remember as a young child, clinging to my mother’s hand, I would move the skin on the back of her hand up and down, watching as it slowly formed back into the flat shell it’s supposed to be—but my skin…my skin would pop back easily as if there were rubber bands underneath it.  Not anymore though.  Now my hands are slowly beginning to remind me of that same quality, the slow rebound of skin that is indicative of age.

Hands tell the truth of life.  You can’t hide the scars or the age in your hands.  In fact, the past few summers as I worked at a restaurant in between school years, it was not people’s faces I looked at to decide whether or not to ID for alcohol (because faces can be deceiving), it was their hands.  The wrinkles on their knuckles, the creases in their skin.  It is these things that truly tell of age, experience, and a life well lived.

My mother’s hands are records of all the amazing things she has accomplished in her life, and I am in no way disappointed that my hands are beginning to take the shape of her's.  If I could have the experience of anyone’s hands, I would choose my mother’s.  I don’t tell her enough, but my mother is a pretty amazing woman.  Her childhood was certainly not the easiest.  After losing her mother to Leukemia at the age of 3, she grew up under the tutelage of a stepmother who was never able to accept her as a daughter of her own or a child deserving of respect and kindness.  But did this deter her from seeking out a happy, healthy life of her own?  No way.

She went to college, met and married a wonderful man (my father, of course).  With my father, she created a large, compassionate, kind-hearted, driven family.  In addition to her own many varied successes throughout her life, we 4 children are evidence of the kind of person she is.  A 30-year-old architect in Sweden, a 28-year-old teacher in Seattle, a 25-year-old med student in Buffalo, and a 23-year-old architect currently saving the world one village at a time in Nepal.  We may have had our struggles along the way, but look at where we are now.  We could not have gotten here without her.

And so, for mother’s day, I give you a list of the top 3 things I’ve learned from my mother and her experienced hands.

3) Be independent.  You can’t rely on the world to take care of you.  One day, you will have to take care of yourself.  One day you will have to budget your own money, motivate yourself through school, create your own career, survive on your own.  Be your own you.  Be strong.  Be independent.  But if there’s ever a moment that you just need mom, don’t be afraid to lean on a strong shoulder to get through the toughest parts (who did I call crying like a teenager when I totaled my car 2 years ago?  One guess).  But then take a deep breath, pull yourself together, and deal with it one step at a time.

2) Choose your battles wisely.  In a house filled to the brim with 4 growing bodies, it’s easy to step on someone else’s toes.  But when your toes get stepped on, sometimes it’s just not worth it to turn around and heel stomp their foot in return.  Sometimes your toes will get stepped on, and sometimes you just have to let it happen.  But that certainly doesn’t mean to give up all the battles, to step back and let the world happen to you.  Choose the right battle to fight, the one that really matters, and fight it.  Fight it with all your might.  Make it count for this important battle. 

1) It CAN be done.  A lot of the determinedness I have (for running, for teaching, for being successful in life) I learned from my mother.  Don’t have the circle driveway you’ve always wanted?  That’s ok, you can hand dig it yourself and puzzle out river stone piece by piece until it’s filled.  Oh and did you want a deck too?  How about a multi-tiered deck complete with a Jacuzzi and a 2 story covered gazebo?  It can be done and you can do it.  I may not have absorbed my mother’s penchant for home construction over the years, but I certainly translated this “you can do it” attitude into many other aspects of my life.  In fact, as I push through tough runs, it is the “you can do it” voice that I look for to get me through it.  I wonder, would that voice have been strong enough to get me through 2 marathons if I hadn’t watched my mother listen to that voice in her own challenges?

And so today, I look down at my hands and think to myself, I hope that one day my hands will have as many stories to tell as my mom’s.  Mom, you may be on the opposite coast, and we may not talk as often as we should, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t with me here every day in everything I do.

Happy Mama’s Day!!

Love you ma!