Is it so small a thing to have enjoy'd the sun?

I recently attended a book club meeting in which we discussed The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. One of the main characters, Elizabeth, has a quote she repeats frequently, "Is it so small a thing to have enjoy'd the sun..." My husband and I looked up the quote and discovered that it is from The Hymn of Empedocles by Matthew Arnold:

Is it so small a thing

To have enjoy'd the sun,

To have lived light in the spring,

To have loved, to have thought, to have done;

To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes...

It is now one of my favorite poems. I love it because it's about enjoying the ups and downs of life and living in the moment. It reminds me of another quote titled "Success" that I learned from a friend in college:

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

They both espouse a very good philosophy and one that I need to remember as I grapple with the question of going back to work. How do I define success? Why am I in such a hurry to put my 2 1/2 year-old in pre-school all day? What is driving me to do it?

I thought I knew. I have been out of the work force for five years which is a long time to be out for a person with a technology degree. My two older kids are in school all day and my youngest is 2 and a half and she goes to preschool two days a week. What am I going to do with myself all day?

More later...

More on Mothers

I wonder if grown-ups who still have their mothers around understand how lucky we are to have had a mother raise us and still be with us.

I recently attended the Heart Gallery of Central Texas Gala sponsored by the Adoption Coalition of Central Texas. The Heart Gallery is a display of portraits of older children in foster care who want to be adopted into a family.

At this gala, I met a very nice young woman who at 36 was finally adopted. One would think that at 36 she would have already gotten used to flying solo in the world, but to her the adoption was the start of her healing. She had been searching for a family her entire life. She talked so proudly about her new Mom and her brothers.

But every where I look, I seem to find stories of people who long for a mother. I also recently met and befriended another very nice young woman who grew up in a house with a mother who had a mental illness. My friend basically raised herself and then got placed in foster care when she was in her teens. She is now married with children so she has created her own family, but not having a mother has really been hard for her.

The mother of one of my roommates passed away when my roommate was six. She left behind two little girls under the age of 7. My friend talked about missing her mother terribly. The only physical evidence that her mother had existed was a purse my friend had in her closet and a picture of her mom, her dad, my friend and her sister that she had on her dresser.

I attended a reading by Sandra Cisneros a few months ago and she mentioned that when her mother died, she cried because she felt like an orphan and she was 54.

And then there are the lucky people, like me, who not only have a mother, but also had a grandmother to care of me. My grandmother lived at home with us and made every one of my meals for my first 18 years of my life. She baked cookies for me. She sang me lullabies so I could sleep. She held me in her arms when I was sick or sad. She hugged and kissed me every day of our life together. My mother worked outside the home, but she was there for me always. My mother still calls me once a week, and she worries about me when I am sick or she hasn't heard from me in a few days.

I just cannot imagine the void that one must feel when that person who adores you more than possibly anyone else in the world, is gone.

I feel for those children in foster care and I wish I were in a position to adopt a few of them. I feel for my friends who carry this sadness inside their hearts every day. And I feel so fortunate to have been born into a family with caring parents and caring grandparents.

But I can't help but wonder, why me? And why were those children at the Heart Gallery born into families who couldn't take care of them? Why am I the lucky one and not them?

I wonder.

TTYL.

Are You My Mother?

For Daniel's Back-To-School Night, students in his class had to write a short description of one parent. The teacher read the descriptions out loud during the classroom meeting with all the parents. Parents then had to guess if the person described in the essay was them. Here is what Daniel wrote:

"Who Am I? By Daniel Kauffman

Do you recognize this elegant woman with dark brown hair?

My mom has dark brown hair, brown eyes and the smell of Pert [shampoo] when she gets out of the shower. She's short and old. Her eyes sparkle like water when the sun hits it.

My mom is always caring for me. My mom is funny. She makes me laugh. My mom helps me a lot. She is fun to play with. She's cool playing with me. She's very smart with computers.

My talented mom is good at making dinner and lunch. She is very fast and good at texting. She's very good at making me mad then calming me down. She gets scared easily.

My mom enjoys watching me play baseball and my sister soccer. She enjoys reading, writing, and math. She also loves school.

Are you my mother?"

I find it interesting that he thinks I'm elegant. :) I find that comment so endearing. I should ask him what his definition for elegant is. The other thing that cracked me up is that he notices the smell of my shampoo, which by the way, thanks to a new friend who knows a lot about hair, I am now using Nioxin shampoo and Redken conditioner and neither smells like Pert. I wonder if he'll notice the difference. I also thought it was funny that he mentioned that I text a lot. I'm a little embarrassed by that comment, but I can't blame him for writing the truth. I'm just glad he didn't write other more embarrassing truths about me...

And I'm not THAT old. :)