Month: May 2018

Kim and I were carpooling with our daughter and her family, driving along Highway 31, on our way to the Peace River for a weekend of family fun to celebrate my 60th birthday, and her 30th. We would be meeting up with our son and his family there. The Florida scenery may be flat, but it is diverse with wetlands, orange groves, sod farms, cattle farms, rivers, and an array of wildlife, but one particular species of wildlife was hitting our windshield, and in record number!

Mariah was driving, noticing that the cars coming toward us all had their windshields covered in splattered bugs! They must have driven through some sort of hatch! Car after car so covered in bug juice we were positive they could barely see through it. Why hadn’t they used their windshield wipers? Probably because there were so many that it would not clear, but simply smear! We wondered where these folks had run into all these bugs, and then we heard it! Splat!!!

One bug splat on the windshield, then another, and another. Soon I had counted five splattered bugs. Mariah tried to keep up with the washer fluid and wiper blades. For a moment I thought we might get some help from the rain that I heard begin to fall, but it wasn’t rain! It was a hailstorm of lovebugs! They hit the windshield in such numbers and such force that it was only the few that got lodged in the wiper blades that allowed us to identify what they were.

I had forgotten that May was lovebug season, when they come out in great numbers to mate! By definition they do not swarm, but gather in the thousands! That is putting a fine point on it! I’m not sure I know the difference! They are more of a nuisance to humans, as they do not bite, but there are just so many of them!!! When they splatter all over your car though, their carcasses become slightly acidic and if you don’t remove them within a day or so, you could notice that they are pitting your paint! They also converge in such numbers that their dead bodies can clog your radiator’s air passages! Whoa and gross all at the same time!

Indeed when we arrived at our destination the windshield was covered in bug guts, and the grill in lovebug bodies. Our son’s new car looked the same and we were grateful for the hard rain that came later that afternoon, which helped to wash most of them off. It didn’t keep them from swarming…..I mean congregating in great numbers around us whenever we were outside, and whether they bite or not, I do not like them covering my clothes and getting tangled in my hair. It was a sight to behold, but still, ewwww!

 

Mother’s Day is coming up, sending most of us into a panicked rush to the store looking for the right card. Do I go with funny or sappy? Do I send flowers, chocolate, both, or something unusual? I do appreciate personal words of love and gratitude from my kids, and whichever way I go with my own mom, I make sure to include those special words to her as well.

I read recently in the Reader’s Digest that if you had to hire someone to do all the work a mom does it would cost $67,619 a year. That’s pretty specific! There was a list of those tasks a mom handles in a day, but I noticed that something was missing amongst the cooking and cleaning. Those are the tangible things, but so much of being a mom is intangible, but ever so valuable. Mom’s have to do so much more than just show up. Being a mom is 24/7 for life, but it isn’t a sentence. It’s a privilege.

When my son was in first grade he struggled with reading. I could have made that the teacher’s problem. Some parents do, but instead we sat together every night, reading every book he had to read the next day in school. He stumbled with Helmut and Olga. Really? What happened to Dick, Jane, and Spot? No wonder he was struggling! I could barely get my mouth around those names. But, night after night he got better, faster, and it became easier, and now reading is one of his favorite pastimes. Hours well spent for a lifetime of discovery and adventure through the pages of books.

When my daughter was in the 4th grade she wasn’t putting much energy into school. I just wanted her to care. She defiantly announced that she didn’t care about her grades. Well, I cared! I was determined that I would stick by her side, check her work, insist she did her best, or she would do it again! One day, either out of resignation that I would not stop, or finally getting why it was important, she cared! She went on to graduate from college Magna Cum Laude.

I wasn’t the perfect mom. I probably hovered too much. Didn’t let them fall enough. But, what I did well was believe in them and all that they were capable of. I would teach them, encourage them. I would never give up on them. Not then, and not now.  That’s what mom’s do. The chores are extra.

My daughter said to me the other day that this will be her first Mother’s Day. I understood what she meant. This was her time, her day to be special to her family. I was not hurt that she wouldn’t be here to celebrate with me. After all, it’s been some time since I’ve spent Mother’s Day with my own mom. The torch has been passed, though once a mom, always a mom.

My mom has cancer. I don’t know if this will be my last Mother’s Day to decide to send chocolate or flowers, to find the right card, and say the right words, or if I will get another Mother’s Day to get it right. My mom might not be the perfect mom, but she is perfectly my mom. I will always celebrate her no matter what the day, no matter how far away she is.