Memories

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays, and this one was no exception.  We spent Wednesday evening and all day Thursday at my sister's house.  My nephew was there, along with his fiance and her son, and my brother and sister-in-law came from downstate.  We had a wonderful time catching up with each other, cooking and eating lots of food, drinking some very good wine, and playing with our three year old great nephew-to-be.  We might not be Norman Rockwell material, but it was a joyous time.

The other thing that we did while we were together was to go through our mother's belongings and decide what to do with them.  It had been almost a year since she had passed away and it was time to take care of her things.  While it sounds like a miserable chore, one that should have been unhappy, it turned out to be quite a good time.  There was sadness because Mama was gone, but there were things that brought many happy memories - the post cards from our vacations on Cape Cod, the original Pooh books and Ferdinand the Bull books that were worn out from so much reading, the little pitcher that she used to heat maple syrup for our pancakes...the list goes on.  We found old family treasures and newer trinkets.  We all kept a few mementos and gave the nephew and fiance treasures for their new house.  We even found an official list of the equipment that she was issued when she went overseas to nurse the soldiers during WW II.

My mother was a human being.  She made mistakes, lost her temper, and could have been a better housekeeper.  She loved cooking, baking, walking in the woods, watching birds, and petting her cats.  She was a nurse, a Girl Scout leader, and an Orchid Society member.  Of all the things that she was, however, the thing that she loved most was being a wife and a mother.  While we miss her, there are so many good memories that we can laugh and talk about her with no sadness. 

I have written before about the fact that we are all memory makers.  When your children or the children in your care remember you, what will they be saying?  How will they be feeling?   Will their memories be happy?  Will they remember the caring, the laughter, and the happiness?  Will they remember that reading to them or walking in the woods with them was more important than dusting or Dancing With the Stars?  Will they remember the impatience and the sarcastic comments?  You have the choice to give the children in your care happy memories or unhappy ones.  Remember, and as Yoda says, choose wisely.