We all have mothers and as we proceed through our lives, we sometimes question the actions of our mothers. Obviously, we stand in a different place in time, look at things from our perspective, our generation.

I have vivid memories of the phone calls my mother and I had every night around 5:00 pm  No matter how long I had been married, no matter whether she was still working or had retired, we shared our five o’clock phone call. Every single week day and often on the weekends.

My mother was always supportive of me, my choices, but I still smile remembering the phone calls when my daughters were both in grade school. Mom would begin with the simple aspects of her day and mine. But then she would often launch into what was going on in THE WORLD, and often it was about children starving in Africa or a war that had forced families from their homes. MY MOTHER HAD A HUGE HEART. But while we were chatting, daughter Number One would pull at my arm needing help with a math question—daughter Number Two often right behind her with a similar question.

Sometimes, I would smile, trying to stay with my mother’s conversation, while pointing at something that might help with the math question, or whispering some direction. Often, I would walk into the living room to escape my daughters, give my mother an answer, give her the attention, the time she also deserved. I don’t remember being further hassled by call-waiting. I do remember I was often trying to prepare dinner, so there was some food either on the stove or in the oven. Let’s just say it could become mini-chaos.

But my mother was RIGHT, her heart and mind open to critiquing the laws and  the actions of governments that bind us together, that make the environment we experience safe for raising children, for our very lives. I was fortunate in her heart, her soul, that she needed to tell me about those who were suffering, to share with me her feelings about the problems with governments, the laws that were wrong. Truly, my mother was totally amazing. And now that my children are grown, now that I am living those “beyond children” decades, I actually better understand my mother’s giving and her intense passion.

A MOTHER IN MY FICTION

Thus, when I am writing, those phone calls, my mother’s ability to remind me that making dinner, helping with homework was a very important role in my life–but I also needed to allow my brain to expand into the wider world, to take in major events that might actually affect the world I was raising my daughters in.

That understanding has worked its way into my fiction. This from a work-in-progress.

Ella would always defend her practice of medicine, because she was a part of it—medicine was what she was. It was not unlike when she had defended certain aspects of current culture to her mother. Cecile ripped apart the changing mores of society, but Ella defended change, because the result was Ella’s society, her culture. She lived in it and dealt with it and so had defended it. She couldn’t condemn what was part of her, what she had embraced and brought Sarah into. If she had condemned all of it, then she would be condemning herself.

But now? The awful things that happened to other people had happened to her, had touched Ella and David in the tenderest of places. Their daughter was missing. Sarah was gone, because of a society full of people who did not obey basic laws and mores; gone because Sarah’s mother and father were a part of it, hadn’t fought it, and had, over time, insidiously succumbed to it.

FINAL THOUGHT

No matter where you live, Dear Reader, or your age or the ages of
those you love, we all must care every day about what is happening in our country and to our democracy. We all must read and seek TRUTH, educate ourselves. We cannot turn away, saying:

“What goes on over there won’t hurt me.”

Or “I’ve got money in the bank, so I’m okay.”

Or “It’s not hurting me, so I don’t really care.” IT CAN HURT YOU.

My mother believed in connection. Maybe walking the streets of Chicago to the train, sitting in doctor’s offices as she aged, reading a daily newspaper or talking to me about my day and always LOVING HER FAMILY made her a stalwart believer in making things right. In helping others.

I think of her often. I do my best with my actions, words and thoughts–like this post. And once again, I thank you for reading and I believe the drawing above adds to the message.