A Mother Never Forgets...

Daily Report
Sunny, 107

You know all those things your mom says about you, the stories she tells, that you secretly (or aloud) groan about and try to dismiss? I remember shrugging them off, complaining as she opined and told tales. As I marched off, she and my friend Sarah would tilt their heads in whispering and giggling about how right she was before Sarah eventually came after me. The truth is they're are all true and they'll probably all haunt you...the things she remembers and the things she'll predict.

When I was younger, the thing I hated most in the world was to be told I was like my dad. We fought so much, both hardheaded, stubborn, always right. Two wrongs may never make a right but it seems like our two rights almost always made a wrong. And, my poor mother, the peacemaker - so sweet - was always caught in the middle of two people fighting "like Rhett and Scarlett," she used to say. Both fighting whatever side we were assigned for the day like brash, showy trial lawyers. Fighting more for the win than for anything else. It's laughable now...or at least, it's laughable since we (I, really) outgrew it. For years now, blessedly, that comment, "She's just like her father," the one I dreaded, has been the highest compliment. I see it all the time now, when I'm like him and I love it...instead of scoffing at it as I did when I was younger. It imposed on me when I was young and trying to find myself, but now it makes me part of who I am.

One of the things, in addition to the determindness I inherited (and to which my wonderful new husband can attest!), is the wanderlust. I even once asked my mom, who'd been born and lived always in Indiana, if it bothered her that she had only lived in one place. She smiled, tolerantly, down on me and said no. I said, quite impertinently, that it would bother me. I, then, as now just always had to have a smart comment.

You can bet your bottom dollar that was a story that was relayed time over time once Jacob and I were engaged and the itinerary was set for a year abroad, to start three days after our wedding. Everyone smiled, laughed knowingly. It's a smash hit as a toast at a rehearsal dinner.

I've enjoyed, as I've gotten older, seeing the ways my parents were right, and the ways I'm like them. It's like the ultimate maturity in a way. But then again, maybe I'm just extremely fortunate to have a family like that. Nevermind, it's not a maybe, it's certain. I guess I still just have to wonder...what else is waiting to come out? What else will she be right about?