Happy Mother’s Day to our Grown and Flown Readers!
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Category Archives: Mother’s Day
Long Distance Love
After I married and had children I became a little jealous of my friends who lived near their parents. In those families, grandparents held the tiny hands of grandchildren as they grew and grew. Fortunately, I learned from my far-away mother how to be close regardless of living sixteen hundred miles apart. She helped me understand long distance love.
Now eighty-five, Mom still travels to see us once or twice a year, refusing to let her slightly weak knee call the shots. Continue reading
The Lavaliere
From Cathy, a Grown and Flown writer:
She rarely wore jewelry. Her face was a perfect oval, with large round deep-set eyes and a Roman nose. That face possessed a genuine beauty far exceeding the allure of any gemstone. The wedding band she wore was gold, small and unobtrusive. Her jet black hair was always simple, pulled back in a chignon or loose and wavy around her face. She was, in fact, of Roman descent. My mother.
If I close my eyes and think of her, I picture her in a pair of Bermuda shorts, blouse tucked in, sneakers on, headed out to the garden to weed. Or dressed in a pale yellow shift dress with a simple pair of pumps and a handbag. Her skin was medium olive and she tanned easily. As a girl, she spent summers in Milford, Connecticut where her father, an Italian immigrant and New York merchant, had a summer home. There she learned to seed the garden, look for plover’s eggs and listen to the sound of the sea as it strummed the shoreline. Raised in the city, she was a country girl at heart. Continue reading
“You’re a Good Mother”
TBK
My mother’s philosophy on gift giving tends toward the mundane. It was my father, before his death, who would come up with the “wow” gifts for each of us that would be waiting under the tree on Christmas morning. My mother supplied the other packages (pajamas, turtlenecks), and would fill stockings with staples – socks, underwear, toothbrushes. When we asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she answered with her own list of basics -nylon stockings, hand cream, and the perfume she liked best. Continue reading
A Memory of Love
TBK
One of the reasons I love teaching English Language learners is that so often my students “enlighten me” about life in America. It most frequently happens when I try to cover some aspect of American culture and their pointed observations and questions offer a fresh perspective worth deeper consideration. Continue reading
A Gift for Ivy
TBK
From Barbara, a Grown and Flown writer:
My favorite gifts that I have received are those that were given for no special event. I never particularly liked the idea of Mother’s Day. Sure, I loved the homemade menus and breakfasts in bed provided by my kids and the sweet cards they drew for me. I felt lucky that my children let me know on a regular basis how much they loved me. I didn’t need a special day to be singled out. Continue reading