It’s all my mother’s fault. If she had just gone along with the flow and said and done things like so many others have done, I would see and do things differently.
Mom did not wear us out with lengthy, guilt-imposing stories of the amount of time she spent in the labor and delivery room. No, instead she took lots of pictures of her five children. She bought school photos each year and made sure that everyone saw her wonderful children. Surely everyone else wanted to see pictures of us as much as she did.
She framed them and put them on display.
But more importantly, she let us know we were on display all the time. She took a good look at me, my brothers and sisters and realized, “These are some hunking, big kids and that is not going to change.”
She then had the nerve to tell us to say, “You are going to be tall. Do not slouch. Stand up straight.”
And she let everyone know what fine, tall children she had.
She believed it, so we did too.
My mom encouraged us to try different activities. I tried all the sports in gym class, but I did not like any of them. I watched my brothers play basketball, but I was in my 30s before someone asked me, “Did you play basketball?”
“Me? Play basketball? No. Why do you ask?”
“Well, because you are tall.”
Ummm, no, but I did read a lot thanks to my mom who read to me until I learned to read on my own. After I left home, I pretty much avoided most sporting events, including basketball games. My brother isn’t on the team, so why should I go watch?
With no pressure from my mom or dad to play a sport, I enjoyed the privilege of finding out what I did like to do.
Thanks to mom, we all took piano lessons in grade school. Some played a year or two. I took lessons through high school and then had had enough. These days, the manual dexterity that made piano playing fun I now use at the computer key board.
I suffered through a few years of clarinet, practiced faithfully, played a few concerts with my proud parents watching, dropped out of band and never looked back. Mom was OK with that.
When I signed up for 4-H, Mom made sure that I had the materials for a dress and the ingredients for the cookies. She made sure my entries got to the county fair, and that we took the time to find them at the fair. I still like to enter items at the county fair. Some years, I have received a ribbon or two.
Mom had one theme that played through every activity: “When you go to college.” Not “if”’ – “when.” So she wondered about the academic worth when I enrolled in drama class. I heard her concern and switched to Spanish. But, the next year she listened as I spent hours memorizing my lines for the senior play, made her comments on what would improve it and came to the show.
Mostly my mom acted as the family cheerleader, encourager and positive thinker. She could always make lemonade out of the most sour lemons of life. She sincerely believed “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7. She thought positive and looked for the silver lining in every cloud.
She thought the best of and for us and nudged us to do the same. Thanks to her mantra – “you are tall, stand up straight and be proud” – as a first grader I looked the cute, petite seniors next to me on the school bus and thought, “You will NEVER be as tall as I am going to be.”
Thanks to her, I sat up straighter and stretched higher to achieve the goals she established long before I realized that many others walked around with slouched shoulders and stooped heads– an awkward apology to the world for their existence.
She encouraged us to “Use what you have to help others.” So these days when the petite petunias ask, “Would you reach that item for me from the top shelf?” I smile and reach.
I have yet to ask them if they would reach that item on the bottom shelf.
I think about it sometimes. However, I can just hear my mother gasp at my audacity, so I don’t. It’s all her fault, so you can thank her for that.
(Joan Hershberger is a staff writer at the News-Times and author of “Twenty Gallons of Milk.” Email her at jhershberger@eldoradonews.com)