Things My Mother Taught Me

My Mother taught me LOGIC…
“If you fall off that swing and break your neck, you can’t go to the store with me.”
My Mother taught me MEDICINE…
“If you don’t stop crossing your eyes, they’re going to freeze that way.”
My Mother taught me TO THINK AHEAD…
“If you don’t pass your spelling test, you’ll never get a good job!”
My Mother taught me ESP…
“Put your sweater on; don’t you think that I know when you’re cold?”
My Mother taught me TO MEET A CHALLENGE…
“What were you thinking? Answer me when I talk to you…Don’t talk back to me!”
My Mother taught me HUMOR…
“When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don’t come running to me.”
My Mother taught me how to BECOME AN ADULT…
“If you don’t eat your vegetables, you’ll never grow up.
My mother taught me ABOUT SEX…
“How do you think you got here?”
My mother taught me about GENETICS…
“You are just like your father!”
My mother taught me about my ROOTS…
“Do you think you were born in a barn?”
My mother taught me about the WISDOM of AGE…
“When you get to be my age, you will understand.”
My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION…
“Just wait until your father gets home.”
My mother taught me about RECEIVING…
You are going to get it when we get home.
And my all time favorite thing-JUSTICE
“One day you will have kids, and I hope they turn out just like YOU..then you’ll see what it’s like.”
And she thought no one was listening.
–author unknown


Did you ever wake up in the morning and think that just once; you would like to make it through the day with only the positive and productive aspects being recognized. I struggle for reasons best left unwritten with focusing on what I do right rather than wrong and there are some days when everyone around me seems to be focusing on what I don’t do as well. I have learned to not rely on others for the building of esteem but wow, sometimes, it just sucks to be walking my path.

I believe that your heart can be the answer to your journey’s correct navigation. Looking within and figuring out just where it stands can make a humongous difference in befalling to a pity party and just feeling the sting of an unhappy connection.

So, what am I on about?

Life’s is full of lemons, trying to hide from it just isn’t the best game play to a beautiful journey. Case in point.

For ever I have felt tremendous guilt over the lives my children had for a major portion of their growing up years. Why didn’t I do something sooner, why was I such a coward and was there anything I could have done to change things? Reality is that I was as equally stuck between a rock and a hard place as they were and thousands of dollars spent both inside and out of LDS Counseling has helped me to understand that.

I am now learning the social awareness of boundaries and owning what is mine to own and what isn’t and along the way I disappoint my kids sometimes. Let me explain in the only way I know how; stories.

Mom or Grandma L to others had many sayings that defined the philosophies of life she best ascribed to provident living. You know, “Don’t throw stones in glass houses”, and the famous one of “loving you more”. I never appreciated her life lessons and the way in which she taught them until well after she had gone. I can hardly wait to thank her when the time comes because even now her words resonate in my heart and I am able to find the path best suited for the situations I find myself in.

On with the story; when I was seventeen and spoiled, self absorbed and thinking I was all that and then some, Mom taught me a lesson that until just recently I never fully appreciated. She and my Grandma P were going to Hawaii for spring break 79 and then some. Grandma had been diagnosed with colon cancer and was in need of away time, Grandpa P was in a full blown case of alcoholism because he wasn’t dealing very well with her cancer and the whole situation was pretty awful. I was in my last year of high school and was in a “holy than thou” state. The combination was lethal and yet Mom was so patient and knew that principle of stages and souls.

At the time I was in a very ridiculous relationship or should I say triangle with a good girl/bad girl twist, I being the good girl and he being very enamored with the bad girl and it was so on and off that even Enmax was complaining. Mom had tried on numerous occasions to try a help me see the light and had even pulled the “I don’t like him” card which very rarely happened, only twice that I can remember, go figure. Well, first love (I write that loosely because he was in no way that but back then I thought so) had decided to dump me just prior to spring break and Grad planning. I was devastated and heart broken and completely self absorbed in pity and Mom never once said “I told you so” she kind of just listened and consoled.

Well, I had a brilliant idea, take me to Hawaii with you, on short notice none the less, so that I could escape the embarrassment and heart ache of it all. Mom listened and said “NO”. Well, I didn’t think that was fair and so I complained some more and even threw a tantrum of monumental proportions and even then, “NO”! Well, how unfair was that. She left and I sulked. How could a mother do such a thing? We were the youngest and trustworthy so we were left to our own devices as she left for Hawaii and I mopped around and for a solid week remained ticked. Mom didn’t love me, she abandoned me at a time I needed her most and the selfish brat that I was never once thought about my beautiful, wonderful, amazing grandmother who was being taken to Hawaii to escape a pretty horrible situation to rest after cancer treatment. Yeah, I know, I was the epitome of a selfish spoiled rotten teenager brat!

That week, as I wrestled this heart ache alone I learned a lot about myself. An old boyfriend who had just gotten his mission call phoned and said he had heard that I might be free, was I up to a date. Well, suffice it to say I went and we reconnected into a warm and wonderful friendship and I learned that as self absorbed as I was at least I could see my heart and know that this time that I had alone to face the demons of a crappy ex-boyfriend and a healthy perspective on everything around me gave me wings to finally get out of myself and feel for the others around me. I wouldn’t say it happened all at once but Mom saying “NO” made me think that she wasn’t always going to fix everything for me, that sometimes I had to fix it myself.

Fast forward 30 plus years and put a whole lot of living into further perspective and now I can see the big picture of learning. That “NO” was monumental. That “NO” made me realize that you don’t always get what you want and that knowing the whole picture can help you feel for the needs of others around you. I can’t even imagine how hard it must have been for Mom. She told me through these days before she left for Hawaii that I would never understand why she was doing what she was doing until I had my own children. She was so right.

“No” is such a hard word for me. I hate saying it and more than that I hate following through with it but just as Mom knew that it was an essential tool for me in learning the big picture, I too feel very much the same. These past few months I have had to say it or follow through with actions that seem very hard. I hope that in time my kids, once they have kids of their own may find it in their hearts to understand why I say “NO” and how vital it is to their growing. I hope they will eventually see the reasons.

Another story, or for lack of a better word, analogy; that old mother bird pushing the baby bird out of the nest. There are some that once pushed fly like no other, and then there are some that struggle and fall to the ground. Mom flies down but the danger is immense and she squawks and squawks and pushes until that baby bird finally tries and realizes it has wings and it rises up. Then there are some that it just takes a number of times and with each one there is danger.

I love my kids and guilt has stopped me from pushing them out of the emotional nest. I’m not talking about the physical leaving of my home. I am writing to the emotional nest and because that’s what I am working on I am feeling the sting of complaint. This is one of the hardest things I have ever done as a Mom and it is not an overnight job. This is what I am writing about when I wrote that after however many years I am still learning. Saying “NO” is the hardest thing I do with my kids and sometimes I fail miserably. I hope that they too, in time, will understand that my words and actions aren’t out of spite or disregard but love. I need them to stand on their own and they can’t do that if I keep saying yes.