The Silver Fox

Week/Question #3, now we're going deep, talking about my mama bear. We share a blessed relationship. One blog post barely skims the cream that is Grandmalene.

If you're new here, I'm blogging to hone my writer's voice by connecting with that inner voice who's been shouting lately. If you jumped in since week #1, welcome back!

Writing fuels me, albeit frustrating as hell. Thoughts and words don't always mesh as planned or come out in a sensical way, and that's what happened here, more of a journal added to journal added to journal and so forth . . .

Question 3: MY MAMA BEAR, WHO IS SHE?

I used to think my mom was perfect… I still do. Because she is, in her own perfectly imperfect way.

She’s wanted a nose job for years, and I’m like, “No way, Mom, you’re talking Jennifer Grey shit, right there. Your nose makes you YOU." And everyone agrees. Ps. she's never had any cosmetic work.

That’s just a physical feature that makes her uniquely beautiful, but since we’re going that direction first, you also can’t miss her soft halo of naturally white hair that frames her brow-bone-defined stunning blue eyes, and cheekbones models envy. Her face lights up with her smile and she captivates you.

She's known as the Silver Fox.

Her heart and humor draw you in the most, quick-witted fun humor, usually playing off words with phrases or breaking into song, <strong>always</strong> breaking into song, like can't-help-herself breaking into song, like <em>bring it on</em> breaking into song.

Grandma doesn’t miss a beat, always ready for the next challenge of Scrabble, Boggle or Horse-opoly.

My mom wants everyone to be happy, so she does all she can think of to bring joy and peace to other people’s lives. She partakes in it all. In so doing, she has sacrificed with a list too intimate for me to ever pretend I could imagine her journey.

She is younger-acting than most 66-year-old grandparents. Heck, we partied together multiple nights at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally where she wore sleeveless Harley Davidson shirts and a POW bandanna and slept on an air mattress that barely fit in their homemade covered trailer.

She lost her mother one year ago this month, and she is still very sad. She misses her mommy. She lived with her for almost ten months before her passing. And now she’s back to the farm with her husband who battles health issues more severely than most, a ticking time bomb labeled by doctors, tough guy putting up a helluva fight labeled by us.

When I was a kid, my mom drew pictures of nice-figured women on a blank piece of paper for me to color in, but I liked to color more than I liked to draw, so I maybe made designs on the A-line skirts she provided. I also always went for the peach pencil or crayon for the skin. Didn’t know or think to go for any darker shades, living in the shade, the shadow, the cracks of existence it felt like sometimes. I didn’t know what I wanted or what was out there but I knew I wanted more.

I was born and raised in the same area as my mom, but she had a different outlook during her upbringing: “It was all she ever wanted.” Yet, she was the girl who fought for short skirts and long pants. She was the girl who desired the movie star husband. She was the girl who loved life more than life could love her the same. She was the girl whose biggest desire was to get married and have babies, and that she did, by 19.

My mother has redefined herself many times, starting with her hair color in the 60’s but more importantly through every decade, life event, shift in universe, she has approached bravely, braver than most people I know.

She sacrifices her time and health for others, it’s what she does. But doesn’t mean it’s not exhausting to bear burdens not your own.

She’s an amazing baker with her specialty as my favorite, sugar cookies, rural radius re-known.

She let me stay home from school when I was a kid, especially in 4th grade when “not feeling well” just meant I was going through some anxiety at school and wanted the comfort of our golden couch and mom’s hand on my forehead while the other held out a Tupperware cup of 7-up. Luden’s cherry cough drops if I was lucky. Saltines, usually.

My mom is like an angel and I’m not saying that to please readership, she just truly is. She transforms into whatever situation is calling her and becomes the best at that. She’s competitive that way. Speaking of competition…

“Sacrifice your bodies, girls!” came from the crowd from the only mouth that ever said those words, from the competitive Marlene. “Hustle, hustle, hustle.”

Not from the batting bin but from the bleachers, a spectator, a mother, a competitor, a former small-town slow-pitch softball player until her bladder gave up on her after birthing four children, and other ailments that follow age into the dugout.

Mom rocked the first base position and sent consistent line drives to the outfield, occasional triples or home runs when feeling her groove. My sister hit like that. I did not hit like that. I was lucky if I made it to first base before the ball smacked the basemen’s mitt, usually a close one, might get to second on a bad overthrow. However, I did put myself in the line of fire like her, my strengths led me to pitcher. For some reason, I could not hit balls pitched to me, but I could strike out some of the most seasoned and cocky and rightfully scary players, ahem, Gloria.

My mom took softball seriously and I guess so did I, proven by the amount of skin I left on softball fields around the state of South Dakota.

We still give her shit as she suffers from various ailments of her own, “Sacrifice your body, where did that get ya?!” Give her shit we do, but suffer she does. Softball brought her joy.

She strengthens her foundation every day by projecting her love upon others. I don’t know how she finds the internal resource but it’s part of her, just as confident as her claims to live with her ailing 97-year-old mother in her own home for the last days of her life on earth, and that she did. Because that’s the person she is. She's a tough cookie who barely crumbles.

I sometimes wish I was more like her but then I remind myself I’m no longer trying to think that way, the direction of should be’s and could be’s, and remember to stay focused on what makes me tick. Mom has found her beat, and although she can get overwhelmed, she feeds from the frenzy of feeling her world.

People say we look alike, more and more they see us, hear it all the time, and I will take it, thank you. But more than that, I hope to follow her heart, and Grandma’s heart. To know each person in this world means something and is worthy and deserves a space to breathe whichever concoction they designed.

To admit in other ways we are nothing alike is equally liberating because it’s okay, and I didn’t always think that way. Not following her footsteps felt sinful, not because she forced those thoughts upon me but because I didn’t have any thoughts that went further. But I knew we weren’t alike, and maybe that’s why I rebelled, to avoid the one I admired.

But I've learned it's okay, for us to be the same and to be different, to honor and to love all our imperfectly perfect ways.

My mother is a distinguished gem with a vast clan of admirers. I can only hope to shine that bright some day.

Preview, Question 4: MY PAPA BEAR, WHO IS HE?

Does your mom have a fun nickname? Please share!