Honoring Roots

My mom has always been a force of nature. For those who think that sounds like a good thing, imagine a tornado as your mother. Certainly worthy of awe and respect, beautiful in its own way. But get out of its path when it turns in your direction and sometimes, though you take shelter, you will be destroyed.

But now, mom is 88.  She did not age gradually, but rather like a dog, one day, you notice the muzzle has grayed and the next, the years suddenly grow heavy.  Only a few months ago, she was wreaking havoc on the home where she had been placed following her broken femur.  Already that time seems long ago, though, as with a tornado, when calm descends, it is hard to put your guard down.  The force is gone but the devastation remains. The question is, now, is how to reframe my own life with mom. I find myself reflecting on the gifts she gave me. Ironically one of them is how to deal with forces of nature. I find myself less flummoxed by stormy or difficult people and situations than many around me. Like a negative teacher, the one who does everything wrong, you learn from watching how to do things right. So, another gift that she and my daughters gave me was the chance to understand the true dimensions of being a mother.  My love of nature is another gift, the place where I met my true mother: Mother Earth.

Mom was 87 before we got her to a psychiatrist. It has been years since I heard her laugh. The medications she was given uncovered the gentler human residing inside the coat of armor. Over the year, I learned to have faith in that gentler creature, though I rarely saw it, and to love it rather than my mom’s injured personality.  Another gift.

This last Christmas and New Year, I celebrated family roots through food and tradition.  I have a fun heritage: Mexican and Scottish. That is a lot of enjoyable cuisine and some fabulous folklore.  This I recommend to you. Eat your birthright.  Go beyond the  lives of mom and dad into the spacious world of ancestors.  I know more about my ancestral traditions and foods than my parents ever wanted to know. They did not pass it on to me; I discovered it, bit by bit. And what’s fun is I have had friends to play with. I traveled by gastronomy, and touched my ancestors and roots, all of them, even my mom.  Try it this year. Genealogical exploration through feasting.