Do You Love Me?

Today I was rereading my blogs and the comments and my heart warmed that people enjoy my stories. However, I found out something about myself while I was reading them. You have to understand that I have MS and that causes my brain to misfire sometimes. So I have read and re-read these blogs before I publish them. But today, I realized that in some of my stories I have portrayed my mother as a stern woman that pretty much stuck to business. That was true, but she was not always that way. Today I am going to tell you a story that is pretty much a three part series of stories in one publication.
I have written about my mother baking on a large scale. I have also written about my mother spacing her children so that she always had a baby at home when one went to school. This story has to do with these two things.
My mother was very busy in the kitchen. I am sure she was trying to do sixteen things at a time and unlike me she always got all sixteen things finished. In the midst of her ovens going full blast, her laundry, her cooking etc. along came me complaining that I had nothing to do and no one to play with. I also complained that I was too little to do “work” like her. I can remember she just looked at me, not an exasperated look, but a look like, “I need to do something about this.” She smiled at me and said, “Well let’s make mud pies.” I thought she had lost her mind. She just never played with me because she was too busy. But there was a problem. It had not rained in ever so long so there was no mud. I think Mother read my mind. Out she came with a small pan of water and a tiny tiny little muffin tin. She showed me how to mix the water and dirt to just the right consistency so that it would mold in my little hands. Then came the fun part she and I searched for little rocks or pebbles to make “chocolate chips” that went in my “muffins”. When the muffins were all made and put in the tiny tins, then she showed me how to put them on a flat piece of ground that was directly in the sun. In a few hours I had the most beautiful little mud muffins in the world. That day is the only day she did that and that will stick in my mind forever.
The Garden Helper
My mother always had a huge garden. She canned and froze everything she could get her hands on. These memories I remember vividly. There was one day when I was just a little girl that she took me to the garden with her. She was planting pepper plants. She talked to me while she was working. She explained the difference between vegetable plants and weeds. Sometimes she would plant and sometimes she would pull weeds and throw them in the row for the sun to dry. The day she was planting pepper plants I was “helping” which she was not aware of. She had planted twenty six pepper plants. I was “weeding” and pulled all twenty six plants out of the ground and threw them in the row for the sun to dry out and destroy. They looked exactly like weeds to me. When Mother realized what I had done. She laughed and told me what a good helper I was. Then she picked up the discarded pepper plants and replanted them while she was explaining to me, “yes, they do look like weeds, but they will grow up to have good food on them that we will like to eat.” She did not get angry at me.
Do You Love Me?
My mother was brought up in a very stern, unsmiling household. There was a feeling of aloofness, yet they were a very close family. My mother’s brothers for the most part especially the youngest one were full of fun, but my grandparents worked too hard to hug and kiss and say I love you. Maybe they just didn’t feel like it.
I knew my mother loved me more than life itself. She always hugged me hello and kissed me goodbye. She and dad would say a prayer to God when we would leave their house asking Him to care for us on the way home. She provided for me when I was down and out many times when I needed not only money, but moral support, and one time even a place to stay. She never told me she loved me.
When I was about thirty five or so I decided I was going to ask her why. She was absolutely shocked. She said, “Well, Honey, you know that I love you.” I said, “of course I know it, but you never say it.” I smile when I think of that day, it took a lot of courage to ask her about it. She kind of tilted her head and said, “ My parents never told me either, it was just understood.” We hugged and hugged, but she still could not change. I tell my kids I love them six times a day. I am so afraid that if I forget, it might be the last day.