Saturday March 25 2017   THREE LITTLE WORDS

I learned from a very early age that if I didn’t want to work I better skedaddle from underfoot so to speak.  Mama always had some chore or activity (usually what a kid would consider work) that would keep us busy.  I did a lot of reading and that kept me safe most of the time; out of sight, out of mind. 

When I went to school I threw myself wholeheartedly into learning and absorbing all I could.  To me the world was a fascinating and curious place.  My mother fed my thirst for learning by taking my sister and me to many awesome places as I mentioned recently in another blog.  My mother also instilled a strict work ethic within me whether I wanted to learn it or not.  If I did not do the task thoroughly the first time around she would see to it that I did the entire job over.  I tried hard to be a quick learner.  I wanted to please and that made it a bit easier.  However, I must admit that it was unusual to feel any passion or desire to do the work assigned.

One task I absolutely detested doing was scrubbing the walls and ceilings of our kitchen on Alvarado Street in San Leandro, California.  Our kitchen stove had a wood burner my mama used for cooking and the soot would escape when she fed wood into the stove top.  Over time, the walls and ceiling which were made of bead board painted with a glossy pale blue paint, would darken and become quite dirty.  It was my job to scrub the ceiling and walls.  The room was small but it seemed like a great big room to me.  I was in my early teens and tall enough, when standing on a chair, to reach the ceiling with the soapy rag and scrub off the soot.  My younger sister’s job was to have a fresh clean rag squeezed out and waiting for me when I needed to replace my black sooty rag.  Somehow in my adolescent mind it just didn’t seem fair that my little sister couldn’t scrub the ceiling.  Of course she was about half my age at that time and not very tall.  But it still made no sense to me.

I’ll never forget the first time I “scrubbed” that ceiling.  When I was finished there were swirl marks of leftover residue on some parts of the ceiling.  My mama did not accept my job as satisfactory.  And to teach me a lesson about doing a less than acceptable job, “I could just get myself back up on that chair and scrub the entire ceiling all over”.  And so I did, under her watchful eye.  No shortchanging my task.  She said to let that be a reminder that when I did a job I was to do it right on the first go round.

I must admit, that was a difficult lesson to learn because even as a kid, scrubbing a ceiling is not easy on the shoulders.  I definitely learned my lesson, at least when it was my mama giving the orders.  And that lesson has followed me throughout my life.  When I do something, I purposely set out to do a good job.  Do I always attain that: probably not. But it was a life lesson I learned and I have been forever thankful to my mama for instilling it within me. 

My mama was a hard worker and her time was never idle.  She never complained about what she had to do but with five daughters she was an excellent delegator.  You learned very early to stay out of earshot of mama if you didn’t want an assignment.  And what kid wants an “assignment”?

I don’t think I appreciated all my mother did until I had children of my own.  She had six children, I had two.  She lived in hard to clean shacks, old apartments, and during the ceiling scrubbing years, a cramped, dinky house in an industrial area.  Everything inside was always put away and scrubbed clean.  She always had a garden of vegetables growing on whatever plot of soil she could claim around our dwelling.  And our dwellings were always surrounded by colorful flowers she planted and lovingly tended.  When I had to do the hoeing I can truthfully say not much love went into the rows.  Mama sewed all our clothes and taught me to do the same.  Her teaching was a gift to my future because I often made garments for myself as well as for my own family.

So much that mama taught me did not come to full fruition until I lived the parallel times in my life corresponding to the years she lived. By no means was my mother perfect, but with her limited schooling and the hardships she faced to keep life and limb together, she tried her best to rear her children to the best of her ability.  She was resourceful, hard working, strict, kept dwelling and kids spit shined, a good money manager with her meager fare, and she loved God and she loved her children.  Somehow she always had something for us to eat by rationing what we had available.  We each had a gift each Christmas as well as an old sock filled with unshelled nuts and an orange.

My mama taught me endurance, perseverance, honesty, to be a hard worker, to never give up, and to love God.  However, the one thing I regret in her parenting is that she did not teach her children how to say “I love you”.  And that was probably my biggest lesson.  It was only when we brought our daughter home from the hospital that I fully comprehended the lesson she taught me in the absence of hearing her say those words.  From that day forward I knew I did not want to parent in her footsteps.  As I held Rebecca in my arms as we walked into our family room that very first day I looked down into our two day old daughter’s face and said to my husband, “I will not parent as my parents did.  Never will there be a day when I am with my child that she will not hear me say I LOVE YOU”.  Dave looked at me and responded, “Then I too will say those words to her every single day”.  And we did.

Many of the life lessons I learned from Mama have been forwarded on to our daughter and son.  But the one thing I love most when I am with our children, and now grandchildren, are the words I say to them, “I LOVE YOU”, each and every time we are with them.  Those three little words are even included in our telephone goodbyes.  Our parting words always being: “I LOVE YOU”!

As I have mentioned in an earlier blog, before my mama died I taught her to say “I LOVE YOU”, and she finally said it to me on several different occasions.  I could tell she was always a bit uncomfortable to say, “I love you too”, having probably never heard it from her parents, but say it she would.  Years later when I told my sister that story she thought it had been herself who had taught her to say it because she too kept telling mama the same thing I did.  I guess mama finally just let those three little words come out (be it ever so tentatively) since she was being confronted from more than just one of us.  Good job sis!  I’m glad that you heard those words too!

THREE LITTLE WORDS

Kathleen Martens

March 25, 2017

www.visionsofpoetry.com

Three little words

With such a punch

Don’t think others know

Believing your hunch.

Others need to hear,

To understand their worth.

Let others be aware

They are valued on earth.

Three little words

“I LOVE YOU”

Not just sweet to say,

But nice to hear too!

“LIVE EACH DAY AS IF IT IS YOUR LAST AND ONE DAY YOU ARE BOUND TO BE RIGHT!”

(A quote remembered but can’t remember the source.)

Thank You Lord for the life lessons I have learned.

Thank You Lord for a mother who loved me, though she didn’t know how to say it.

Lord thank You for the opportunity to live until my children grew to adulthood.

Thank You for the words “I LOVE YOU”.

Thank You God that You are LOVE.

Have a great Saturday!

GOD BLESS YOU!