As I accumulate years, I feel like I pick up a little more wisdom, a few more gray hairs, a few more little wrinkles that don't go away even when I relax my face, a few more souvenirs, a lot more memories. I worry that I pick up a little more jadedness, too. I think I was a sweeter person when I was younger -- before I learned about sarcasm, criticism, irony, and loss.
My mom had her first stroke when I was about 12 years old, and has had several more since then. Each one has whittled away parts of who she is and what she can do. My mom's strokes changed a lot of things for her and for our whole family, but one of the beautiful gifts that came from such a terrible disease was that she lost a lot of that hard-edged cynicism that brands us as adults. With the hard edges removed, there's this wonderfully authentic sweetness that bubbles up to the forefront. She's my best role model for staying young at heart.
File this under the very large category of "Why I love my mother."
She sent me this for my 31st birthday, with total sincerity:
First you had me laughing out loud about poor Elmo, then I scrolled down a bit to this post. This sweet, sincere, very touching post. I almost teared up a little. This is why I love your blog, Sarah. I'm glad you're back to posting again!
ReplyDelete(And glad you're mom's still going strong!)
I've missed your posts. For obviouse reasons; you can be so dang funny and making me cry at the same time. I loved this post. Hope you had a super-duper birthday Sar-Bear.
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