NOTE: I wrote this a couple of weeks ago on my new laptop before I had an external floppy drive that would enable me to transfer the document to my regular computer so that I could post it on my blog. Of course I
Kalilily Time
Just an old lady talking to herself
Very nice, Elaine! You realize that, being childless, I live my childbearing and almost-crone life through you. 🙂 And I smiled at your perusal of the Table of Contents for women sf writers; I pretty much do the same thing, whether it’s a short story collection or an anthology comic book. 🙂
I think you and my mother would get along really well. She’s 43 this year and raising her 9 year old daughter on her own. She has three daughters, all of whom she raised by herself, sometimes while working several jobs at one time. She would probably have insecurities that she wasn’t the best mother in the world, but I feel very lucky to have had her.
I sent her a card for Mother’s Day (she lives in Virginia, and I’m over here in the UK), telling her how much I appreciate and admire her and that I think she is a wonderful and generous mother. She really did an amazing job with us, considering how much her heart must have been breaking at the time. She made so many sacrifices.
She didn’t mention the card when I phoned her a few days after she received it. She is not a very emotionally expressive person and wouldn’t really know what to say. I’m hoping she believed me though, and that it meant something to her, because she gets very little appreciation despite how much she deserves it.
This is a beautiful entry, and beautifully written. You are deserving of your Crone Throne.
i like you, Elaine. just that.
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Lindsay, your mom is only a couple of years older than my daughter, and so that makes you the age of a grandaughter I might have had under other circumstances. (Just thought that was interesting.) Keep saying the things you need to say to your mom, even if she doesn’t respond. She needs to hear them from you, believe me.
My mother is a grandmother too. My older sister has two sons. Grams are getting younger every year! My mom has trained them to call her “mom’s mom” though. hehe.
Greats stories. Debbie and I are living the older parents life, and reading about your daughter and grandson was wonderful. Our younger daughter at two and a half is still speaking her own language, which we aren’t smart enough to understand. You are a great gramdmother, count yourself lucky to be young enough to do those things for your daughter when you can. And taking care of your mother as well, admirable indeed.
Our parents are getting to the point where it takes much of their energy to maintain their independence. We had Anita’s (Debbie’s mom) 84th birthday party friday. The girls had fun with all the generations. Debbie’s nieces cooked and decorated, they are high school and college age, and did a wonderful job. Anita says she this was the first birthday anyone has ever done balloons and ribbons for her.
Lindsay, you are to be commended for having the insight and follow through to acknowledge your mom. Parenting at whatever age, in the best circumstances is challenging enough to turn an atheist to prayer.
Very interesting, Elaine. I am the youngest of three children. I am forty-five. My mom is eighty-four. Gerry and I didn’t get married ’til I was thirty-five and he was thirty-three. I was thirty-eight when my first daughter was born, which, ironically was how old my mother was when she had me, her last child. I just turned forty-three when our second daughter was born. Since my first pregnancy ended with me pre-eclamptic, I was considered as having a high risk for the second pregnancy. In actuality, I was in better physical condition the second go ’round than I was the first time. On my chart they had written, AMA. When I asked what AMA meant they told me, Advanced Maternal Age”. You would think that no women in their forties were having babies.
My mom and I have commiserated about being caregivers. During the first four years of my older daughter’s life, she was taking care of my dad who died in December 2000. My older daughter has severe cerebral palsy. No health problems with that, thankfully, but a challenge all the same. My mom and I were each other’s lifelines, especially in the first two years of my daughter’s life when no one had any answers for me. My mom’s “busman’s holiday” was when she’d leave my dad with hired help for a few hours and meet my daughter and I before one of her therapies. We’d have lunch and then go to my daughter’s Feldenkrais lesson.
My mom is a remarkable woman. She took care of my dad for eight years. As I start to slide croneward, I hope to have half of her wisdom when I get to her age. She’s taught me a lot about compassion.