MY MOTHER

I have never been a person who did not like Mondays. I never thought I had the Monday blahs. I generally worked in places where, coming back to work on Monday Morning, was like a reunion. Everybody was buzzing about their weekend experiences; or at least, listening to others who were excited about theirs.

Yet this morning, I have something akin to the blahs. It has been cloudy for about three days now, off and on raining, I don't know if that is the cause. Yesterday, it was drizzly and cool all day, and I enjoyed my day, reading and doing Saturdays and Sundays crossword puzzles. We had a quiet Mothers Day, a nice dinner; homegrown roast chicken, rice and a giant salad.

Today is my Mother's birthday. She would be a 101 if she was alive. It is, also, my youngest brother's birthday. He is 70. Some folks like to gush about their Mothers. My Mother wouldn't like that. She was human, and she appreciated her humanity, and had no illusions of sainthood. I loved her deeply. We were close. She was, a very well read, self taught. person. She exchanged ideas with me. We squabbled, argued, and disagreed. I never doubted her love for me.

Her greatest gift was her love for Nature. She was a passionate gardener. She loved being down on her hands and knees, with her hands in the dirt. We raised much of our own vegetables. I remember one year she canned 100 quarts of tomatoes. She, also, taught us how to forage for berries. We picked wild raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. I remember going to school and having homemade bread and home canned wild blackberry jam in my lunch. I didn't think it was so neat then. The other kids had soft white bread and things like bologna. 

We lived in suburb of Minneapolis, called Columbia Heights. In those days it was the end of civilization. Now it is all urbanized and sub-urbanized. Then we could walk a few blocks and be on a prairie. Most of Columbia Heights was on deep clay soil, but the Northern part became sandy, and a few blocks further, it was sandy oak savannah, and some stretches of sand dunes. Most Springs, my Mother would take her brood [four boys and a girl] out to the prairie to look for pasque flowers. They were, a crocus like flower, that bloomed very early; soon after the snow cover retreated. In September we found blackberries growing in the same area. They were a low bush type of blackberry. We, also, picked high bush types in the woods, around Big Marine Lake, some thirty miles to the North East.

My Mother was open minded about most things; but paradoxically, she was extremely intolerant of any kind of intolerance. We didn't dare to repeat any pejorative words we might have picked up in the neighborhood. I once called the junk man a sheeny. I was innocent, I thought sheeny, was another name for junk man. This elderly gentlemen came up and down the alleys of our neighborhood, with a horse and wagon, collecting scrap metal etc. I don't remember what interrogation followed; but I know, I never used that word again. To this day, I am not sure, how the word was used, and what the significance was. She made it clear that it was a bad word to say about a Jew-but I didn't know what a Jew was, either. I learned to be discerning.

My Mother was a rich source of opinion, ideas and knowledge. She believed things passionately; but was, almost, always willing to be challenged about her beliefs. She would not think of retreating from an argument. Most of her life, she read a book a day. She had good literary taste. She read all of Shakespeare and Charles Dickens before she was a teen {they were in the family library} and she continued reading all her life. She graduated from High School when she was barely fifteen. She just turned fifteen in May and graduated in June. She didn't go to college. She was married when she was seventeen.

My Mother embraced life. We celebrated everything that we could celebrate. On Washington's Birthday we would have cherry pie. There was something for Lincoln's Birthday, too. I can't remember what. All the events of our life were celebrated.

My Mother's humanity was rich, and she had many traits, that some would call faults, as well as virtues. I loved her whole beingness.

When I started out, I had no idea what I going to write. I got a late start because I had no inspiration. Then I remembered it was my Mother's birthday.

Love and Peace,  Gregg