Butterfly Mom

Mother's Day arises once again and I am not the cynic who says "enough of these 'holidays'". Mothers are special in that they, regardless of how, are the principal caregivers. I have to add that fathers can be mothers, too. Perhaps we can call them MomDads. I have known some and whether it is a single family MomDad or of a couple, they are still mothers to their children. Mothers, and I include MomDads as well as others such as grandparents and any who hold a mother bond with a child that only the child knows. A child will go first to their "mother" person for protection, sustenance and advice. My mother was called a gadabout by her inlaws who loved her and she them. She didn't like the term but it was true of her style. I called her my butterfly mom secretly. She flitted, not ran or gadded. She came from a prairie grain farm upbringing in a strict family who saw all of their seven children needed as helpers and members of a family that worked hard to make a living. She didn't have the education she wanted in the days before the onset of the Great Depression but nothing stopped her from making every day of her life one of learning and bettering herself in some way. A tiny, pretty and self sufficient woman, she went out every day until in her nineties she could no longer drive her car. My father adored her and handed over the family earnings which she supplemented to buy her two daughters things she never had. We were given piano lessons and dance training. When my father built our house, she decorated it in sewing everything including drapery and furniture coverings. She made our princess clothing from patterns she formed. She learned how to oil paint on her own and when she decided to kick out leaving our father in friendship because he understood, she spent all of her remaining lifetime learning new skills and doing them well. As small children, she took us out everyday in the old Ford, she drove without a license, to visit her friends. She baked and sewed for them. She earned her friendships and her friends loved her back. She was lighthearted and fun to be around. She didn't walk, she ran or flitted like a pretty butterfly. For her friends, she made christening, graduation and bridal gowns and decorated tiered wedding cakes, and knitted doll clothes. She comforted her women friends whose babies were special, or whose marriages failed and she went to work during the war years when the men were away. I remember when we lived in a city, she had enough of country, and our house had a back or sun porch. In those days, houses had clothes lines and back porches were glassed in and usually had a washing machine in them and the ice box. Ours was large and after a birthday party my eleven year old sister and I held, we were to have the adventure of camping out on the sun porch. That night, my father set up the fold away cot and just as my sister and I were hopping into it in the dark and full of giggles and tales, the entire sky burst open and a huge bolt of lightning split it in half. We ran screaming hysterically thinking the world had come to its end, and straight into our mother's arms. I remember how safe I felt there as we clutched the one person we knew who could save us. From anything. Mom lived until her ninety fourth year taken by a stroke that stopped all of her ambitions and drive to learn. But she never stopped appreciating the beauties that lay around her in gardens and her family's smiles and hugs. Mothers are not forever but as long as there are children, they are.