It's Almost Mother's Day

-


Sometimes the universe, via the grapevine, the internet, the New York Times or the Bible sends me a message that I can’t ignore. This verse, which I had never heard before, is one of those.  I  found it in a hymnal. It's from Paul's second letter to Timothy, chapter 1, verse 5.

“I am reminded of your sincere faith that lived first in your grandmother and your mother and now lives in you. I remind you to rekindle this gift of God for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but a spirit of power and love and self-discipline.”

 I thought of my grandmother, Louise Russell, and her daughter in law, Ginny Brown, my mother.  MomMom and Mom. They both married into the Swanson family and both answered to the name Mrs. Robert S. Swanson.

Mom married Dad at nineteen.  On her first Christmas visit to her new family she got into a pillow fight with her husband, his little sister and three brothers.  MomMom stormed into the room to quiet them down, saying, “Now that’s enough!  I want quiet and that means You-and you, and you, and you, and you, and…” she looked at her new daughter-in-law and giggled.

They were two very different Presbyterian women who loved each other dearly. They both loved Jesus, MomMom with her whole heart and Mom with a few reservations.

When I was five, and I know I was five because we were living with my grandparents and we moved away when I started first grade, I heard Mom say to MomMom as she heard a song on the radio,
“Oh, I love this song, ‘Under a Blanket of Blue.’”  It was a pop song and I knew even then that MomMom didn’t approve. She only liked hymns. She didn’t hold with drinking, dancing or smoking.
Mom’s idea of fun included all three but she never smoked around MomMom.  “When I’m with her I don’t even feel like smoking,” she said.  I understood that.  When I was with MomMom I wanted to be just like her but sometimes it felt like her way involved too much saying no.

When I was fifteen I tried once again to be a Christian the way MomMom was.  I told Mom. “I’ve asked Jesus to come into my heart—I’m going to be born again,” or something like that.  Mom’s reply was, “Well, OK, but not for too long.”  As always, she didn’t explain herself but I got the point.  She didn’t like the restrictions.

Recently I had a dream that I was staying in the guest room at MomMom’s house.  It was on the second floor but I found a door and walked out into a beautiful garden, with a fountain and birds singing.  I asked her, “How come I never knew about that garden?”

She replied, “I didn’t think it was safe for you to know about that.”

Mom loved MomMom dearly and respected her, but didn’t follow her blindly.  She thought you could love Jesus and also go to the prom.  It’s a balance I‘ve been thinking about all my life.  I think these two women  together showed me a spirit of power, love and self-discipline.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Does Inspiration Come?

-
Image
“One’s work is nothing but the long journey through life to recover, through the detours of art, the one or two great and simple images that first gained access to one’s heart.”                                                                                                       Robert Beverly Hale quoting Albert Camus The first time I heard this quote, at an Art Student's League dinner, I thought, "Well, that doesn't apply to me." I was deep into my bird period; drawing their feather patterns was great practice for my pen technique but I wasn't a bird watcher or anything.  Then I went home for a visit and my mother said, "Let's have a slideshow. She pulled out all the old family ...
Read more

I'm Keeping' on the Sunny Side

-
Image
 Good Morning!  I was thinking about posting a reprise of an old post about PINK, to keep the Barbie vibe going; I understand that in London they've painted all the red telephone booths pink and the great Ferris wheel has pink lights in honor of Her Plasticness but I had a better idea--you could say the Sun came up! You know I have a granddaughter named Sunny, right? I wanted to do a drawing for her and what else could I start with? The Sun and sunflowers--not very original but she's two and a half--to her everything's new and it's her name! Filling in the sky I see that it looks like the way I draw water, but that's OK.  I added Batchelor Buttons beneath the Sunflowers and I like the way the blue makes the yellow pop.  I'm not sure how to handle the transition from flowers to sky so I won't think about it.  Remember Mickey Rivers; "I don't worry about what I can control because if I can control it why worry?" And I'm in control! I used som...
Read more

Summer Reading

-
Image
What are you Reading?  I love it when someone asks me that. The Times Book Review has a column that asks what's on your night table?  Does everybody read in bed?  If I have a good book I can't wait to say good-night. But as reading and writing has made me focus on language an abyss of bad grammar has opened before   me and I cry out in anguish. Will I ever become inured to hearing Ivy League graduates on NPR saying, "Him and Me are gonna..." and "Please reach out to John or I?" Terry Gross never corrects anyone's grammar and I respect  that,  it's not a good interviewing technique,  but where are the mothers and teachers?  How has it come to this? And another thing! The misplaced modifier!   In a biography of Willa Cather I read, "At the age of eight, school began to bore Willa."  Really? School was eight years old?  Miss Cather is rolling over in her grave.  And this, from Elle Decor; "As a young girl, her father affectionatel...
Read more