My Mother's Plan

There was an immense time in the life of this universe in which none of us existed. And, there will again come a time when neither you nor I exist. We should all feel fortunate to have shared our brief sliver of time with Mom. Who could have known that such a tiny window in the existence of the cosmos could provide such a wealth of joy and wonderful experiences? Who could have known that the way Mom lived her life would have such a positive and long-lasting influence on me and my family and indeed, all the other people in her life? Who could have known that every accomplishment, big or small, would become a goal for which we also strived in our own lives? She was our golden standard, our role model, our guide and our teacher. So many of the things I have done and do now are analyzed within the framework of Mom's life. Maybe MOM had a plan. If she could have planned her life 92 years earlier, at the moment she was born, what would she have said?

It would have had a 4-H twist to it and it would have been what she expected from the others in her life as she marched along for over nine decades. And, of course, it would eventually end up being the plan which I would use to live my life. I think it would have gone something like this:

In my life, whether it be short or long, I pledge my head to clearer thinking about the things that truly matter in this world – like my parents and my brothers and my husbands and my children and their families and my friends and all the children of these people and the children of their children . . . like Christmas dinners and egg-salad sandwiches at lunch and matrimonial cake for the UCW Unit or Promotion Day at Sunday School. Harvest meals and the smell of coffee in thermoses in the shade of the combine tires or just saying the name of the town where I will first live – TREGARVA - or the sewing of a quilt for any one of countless children to be born in the next 80 years – raise your hand if you have one in your home. . . . about gardens and flowers on the back deck and "glads" for placement at the cemetery, phone calls on birthdays, cards at Christmas and the need for perfectly formed letters that build the notes and sentiments and signatures within. Of course, there will have to be picnics at Wellington Park by “the river” as my grandchildren will recollect. There must be Fisherman Knit sweaters and Siwash sweaters with curling brooms and white-tail deers and trees that I should have time to knit while watching Ed Sullivan on black & white television . . . and there will need to be baths for all the kids, especially on Saturday night and Danceland and Square Dancing and the Murdocks and the Wallands and the all the Smiths and the Jones and every one of those names that will be as common in our home and to my own children as going over to Smith’s, over at Ralph’s or up on THREE or standing on a chair and looking out the tall window in the kitchen wondering if we can spot the bus before it turns the corner or standing out on the road waiting for summer cousins to arrive. Of course there must be food – there will always be a need for food – food like chocolate macaroon fudge cake at birthday parties with dimes and nickels (and pennies) wrapped in wax paper and inserted strategically here and there and especially in the outside pieces and food like pork tenderloin and Sunday roasts and Saskatoon Pie and chocolate chip cookies and bachelor buttons and . . . .

. . . And my heart to greater loyalty to my family and friends – especially my family. This will mean, of course, personally memorizing the dates of 431 family-member- and friend-birthdays beginning with the particulars about great-grandfathers and great-aunts and grandchildren, nieces, nephews, children and spouses, and the children of friends of friends. This will also include chasing away witches for my grand-daughter with the sweep of a broom and chasing away the fears of all my children and keeping the world at bay for anyone really, who is in need of that sort of help. As a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt, great-aunt, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, cousin, friend and wife, I will have to be there when needed, unselfish with my time and thoughts and strength and loyalty to help make everyone’s stay here a better one. There shall always be great delight in giving and receiving the greetings that come from anyone knocking on my door or ringing the buzzer in the entrance. There will likewise, be the same delight in the farewell waves I give from the big window when it is time for my company to go home. There will never be a break in my character. I will always maintain my loyalty for everyone I touch or am touched by, for all the days of my life.

. . . My hands to larger service for the church, my clubs, my farm, my family and my friends. I will be tireless when it comes to making comfort items for others (food and clothing for example). If I am called on to do so, I will hammer nails, feed pigs, drive grain trucks in harvest, play ball, go curling (even play lead if necessary), deftly snatch eggs from under laying hens and care for family pets, make school lunches, clean house, welcome new members born to the family or married into the family, mother children, grand-mother children and work in a grocery store. I will be a leader of children and adults, I will sing at church, I will visit in hospitals and I will take responsibility for my part in the lives of others and – I will cut my children’s hair, with scissors at first but later I will graduate to electric clippers by the time they reach adolescence and, of course, I will be sure to inform them, “Oops, notched you!” should I ever make a mistake.

. . . And my health, my spirit, my vitality and tireless efforts to keep as many people as possible posted on the weather, the harvest progress, "Rider" games, the Brier and the "Blue Jays". So, I will have to keep a diary and I will use it as a reference to make sure we never forget the little things (nor the big things) in our lives. I will stay up until three o’clock in the Morning (or later) every first weekend in March just to catch a 30 second glimpse of my kids and their own kids or grandkids passing through on Tele-Miracle because I will be immensely proud of my family and the causes my family will no doubt, stand for. I would like to attend in person or on the radio every wedding, graduation or important event or celebration of any of my children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews or their children because I am proud of them and I want to show that I am proud of them. I suppose I should also be proud of my own efforts and causes although not quite as obviously proud as I will be of the others in my life – I will remain humble and make room for others. And if there happens to be say, as many as 33 877 days in my life, I would be more than grateful to be able to say that I was there for every one of them and that I had at least one good big laugh every day – I couldn’t ask for more than that. There will be at least that many memories and events to go along with all of those days. It would be nice to talk about all of them all at once and in person or on the phone but . . . I guess I should stop here with one final note – I want to make shortbread cookies, lots of shortbread cookies, shortbread cookies for family and shortbread cookies for friends, and I want them to be perfect and I want them to be me – so, no story of my life would be complete without mention of the thousands of shortbread Cookies that I plan to so lovingly provide for more than 70 years for better living for my club, my community and my country (and, of course, my family). The shortbread cookies shall be my metaphor. They shall be a symbol of my love and dedication to the people I care for and care about. They will be a constant in my life and the lives of everyone I will meet along the way. And, I hope that will bring a smile on good days or cloudy days. And, if I can manage most of this, then all in all that will be quite the life.

These are the things that Mom must have planned, because she lived them and she ultimately passed them on and taught them to me and everyone else. She taught me to pay attention to detail and to collect and save. She taught me to laugh and to be a 'joker'. She taught me about plants and animals and about love and caring and finally she taught me how to bake short-bread cookies and how to make them with love, each and every time her recipe was followed. In turn, I taught my cooking students in China, how to bake short-bread cookies with that same love and attention to detail. And now, because of what my Mom did and the way she lived her life, there are people all over the world, using love and care to continue her metaphoric legacy in the baking of short-bread cookies and more importantly I suppose, in the living of their lives.