By Trina Machacek
That sentiment is alive and well this post Mother’s Day week of May. I am not surprised by the fact that the greeting card company is as satisfied as a team of little leaguers at a pizza parlor after winning the big game. Yes, both are happily stuffed. Little boys with pizza and greeting card companies with cash form the 113 to 115 million cards sold to express love to moms everywhere. But. Yes, a motherly patted “but.” How do you choose just the right, heartfelt or funny, or silly, or thankful enough card? The answer is you probably can’t and more so probably never will. I do think that moms get it though. Especially when they see their kids do something the way they themselves do things.
Trina Machacek
Over the years we all become different parts of who raised us. Believe it or not, even I’m becoming my mother. More and more as time goes by. Oh and believe me, a lot of time has gone by already. It’s a wonder I don’t smoke those little Lucky Strike cigarettes—right down to the last half inch. Cough. Cough. Yes, my siblings and I knew how the Lucky Strike song went before we could sing Jingle Bells. We all knew LSMFT was Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco way before we knew the alphabet! And I could fix a Scotch and soda like no bartender could. And do you know. I wouldn’t change a single thing about who my parents were or how they raised me. I can tell you that I don’t smoke and very rarely drink. And never scotch. Yuck.
Even though I cling to those memories I do not follow them. Well not all of them. There are some things that I do that my mother did. I assume most of us do something that we learned from someone who had a hand in raising us. My mom could walk into my kitchen today and know where everything is. My kitchen a mirror of how her kitchen was. My cupboard where the spices are is just as unorganized as hers was. Oh yes, it’s booby trapped. Several odd things, including an opened, half full box of toothpicks will no doubt fall out on the counter if you dare to reach in for something outside of garlic salt or paprika. And they would be round toothpicks, not those weird flat ones. Who buys flat toothpicks anyway!?
A few times in my life I have been witness to watch someone teach their little ones how to do something. Like iron a shirt. There was a game show a few weeks ago where one of the faux questions was, “According to the university of ironing, where do you start when you iron a shirt?” I immediately said the collar. The people on the game show had three tries and all three were wrong. I thank my mother for teaching me how to iron a shirt. Oh and it isn’t just girls that learn women stuff. My other half found himself lucky enough to know how to sew on the different insignias he and his other Air Force airmen would get. That was because his mom took the time to teach him how to sew with a needle and thread. He told me he got lots of candy bars and cookies by knowing how to sew.
Where this all came from today? Well I took a break from writing and started playing solitaire on my laptop. As I sat there click after mind numbing click, I started winning. I finally got how to play this one game called Free Cell. It finally clicked how to win and I was having fun getting some satisfaction in listening to the cards ptptptptptptptpt as they automatically flew when I finished and won a game. It hit me, that was what my mom did when she needed to have a break in her life. She played cards. I said out loud, “I am becoming my mother.”
I couldn’t ask for a better way to think of myself, than becoming Eva Russell.
Happy Mother’s Day past, present and future.
Trina lives in Diamond Valley, north of Eureka, Nevada. She loves to hear from readers. Email her at itybytrina@yahoo.com
