Battle Hymn of My Mormon Mother

First thing: It is somewhat appropriate that my tribute to my mom is showing up after Mother’s Day proper. My card and gift also showed up after Mother’s Day proper. No, I didn’t say this was commendable! I’m not proud of being tardy to the party, but my mom is understanding.  

Next point: I KNOW my mother has zero interest in people talking about her or remembering her in some inflated, overly romanticized fashion. We’ve spoken more than once about this phenomenon, this rhetorical pedestal-placing that sometimes happens after a loved one’s death or because of some momentous milestone passing. “Don’t let your dad tell everyone I was perfect if I die first,” she once joked. So this isn’t a rose-colored Tribute to My Sainted Mother kind of Mother’s Day piece. In fact, I’ll start by saying that one thing I’ve learned from my mom is that all parents are going to be flawed in some way, and that such flaws are inescapable, thus…spending too much time bemoaning the fact that your parent did X or didn’t do Y obscures the reality that parents who did do X probably fell short on K and parents who didn’t do Y probably did lots of  M instead. So no worries, Mom – I am not presenting an overly romanticized, airbrushed version of you as a mother. I won’t pretend that I liked drinking powdered milk, because I didn’t.  

Continuing: I LOVE this poem. I have taught this poem to every single literature class I’ve taught in the last decade+. This poem usually kicks off the intro to poetry unit in said classes, so great is its value to me and so truthful its truth:

Those Winter Sundays  by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early 
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, 
then with cracked hands that ached 
from labor in the weekday weather made 
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. 

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. 
When the rooms were warm, he'd call, 
and slowly I would rise and dress, 
fearing the chronic angers of that house, 

Speaking indifferently to him, 
who had driven out the cold 
and polished my good shoes as well. 
What did I know, what did I know 
of love's austere and lonely offices? 

Obviously, this poem is pained and bittersweet. There is a sense that the speaker of the poem will never have an opportunity to offer thanks to the father who kept the house warm – and cold. Such a tone, however, is not why this poem comes to my mind for Mother’s Day. But in addition to the regret, there’s something else there too, an honest admission from the son that he knew very little about being a parent or about a parent’s love when he was a child.  

So it is with me. Many times, I have paraphrased those Robert Hayden lines in my mind as such: “What did I know, what did I know / of being a mother?” When I was my mother’s daughter living under her roof, I knew that she was organized, but I lacked a full appreciation of the scope of her vision and the strength of her resolve. Every day when we came home from school, there was a snack on the counter, for example, and a list of jobs and fun activities to be accomplished. Every day. Highlights on the snack front included popcorn with melted chocolate drizzled on it and trail mix with chocolate chips! Those were special days. Our was not a house o’ junk food. Meanwhile, my mom was teaching piano lessons in the living room. But she managed to take care of business in the front and back of the house.  

Fast forward to now. I am a mother too. My kids also come home from school. They rummage for something in the snack drawer. They make do with apples that are a bit soft. They eat boatloads of goldfish crackers, and that isn’t the worst of it, nutritionally speaking. In fact, I am purposefully omitting the worst of it, nutritionally speaking, so as not to make myself look as lame as I actually am. They drink milk straight from the carton too. My daughter begs me for a job list of tasks she should accomplish, hoping and hoping that this will be the afternoon I finally implement a steady allowance system that works…and lasts, but it won’t be. Sorry. The white board in the kitchen has a bright green to do list on it, sure, but I haven’t updated the list in something like 30 days. She wants the kind of organization with which I grew up, and oh my, do I appreciate the consistent work and effort of my mother then, now.

When I was young, I took violin and piano lessons. And dance. And I practiced those instruments and those steps. No, I was not the Star Search student of the year, but I did practice those instruments enough to learn to play and to play some things well. I was in All-State orchestra. I memorized a piano concerto or two. I have memories of practicing, yes. I remember the Suzuki books and the group lessons. I remember my Dad taking us to dance lessons while my mom taught piano lessons, which as often as not, she taught in trade so that we could have our private lessons. Yes, I remember being tired at the piano bench, sleepily running scales while my sisters slept in a bit. I remember attending those piano lessons and my violin lessons as well. So yes, those were my fingers on the keyboard, my fingers on the bow. But in an interesting and not inappropriate hiccup of memory, my mind seems to attribute whatever musical prowess I accomplished to my mother. She is the reason I can sing and play. I just managed to show up. She made it possible for me and my sisters (and my dad) to learn how to perform, and because she was and is such a crack whiz accompanist, she made us sound good too. Three words: Hill Family Singers. Three more: matching cat shirts. Those were good times.

Fast forward to now. I want my son to be a drummer like his father, yet we haven’t progressed much beyond iPad apps, honestly. And I want my daughter to learn the piano. I even tried teaching her for six months without much success, after she had already studied for a number of years with someone else. So guess what we’re doing instead? My daughter now takes FaceTime piano lessons from her grandma, my mom. Grandma also teaches piano lessons to her other granddaughters. They love the opportunity, though they probably do not yet realize just what an ace teacher they have, nor do they realize that she’s come out of retirement to teach them. She’s a psychologist now and has been for many years. But she loves the chance to make music with her grandkids!  

When I graduated from high school, I left home and ended up hundreds of miles to the west, attending the same college my mother had when she was a freshman, and even living in the same dorm she had graced back in the 1960s. And my mother’s vision for me continued – that I would have the opportunity to attend college and that I would graduate. When I managed to get engaged before I turned 20, she was a wee bit nervous, knowing that early marriage often derailed educational goals, but I stayed in school and got that diploma. And I didn’t marry until I was 25. (And I didn’t divorce until I was 36, in full disclosure.) And thanks to my parents’ careful budgeting and total commitment to my post secondary education, my job during the fall and spring semesters was being a student. I did work 40 hours a week filing papers, answering phones, and handing fast food out a drive-thru window all summer, every college summer, depositing those earnings in my college fund, but it was my parents who made my education possible, and all because my mother had a vision for us.

Her vision also included that we, her daughters, be able to play the hymns in the hymnbook before we left home and that we be able to type. This latter requirement is why I had to enroll in Basic Keyboarding as a high school senior, but you’d better believe I was grateful for all of those “f, f, f, f, j, j, j, j” lessons when it came time to type my college papers. And even though I was reared in a religious tradition that sometimes encourages submission and does not necessarily teach or reward female independence, pardon the broad brush with which I am painting, I was fortunate to have my mom as an example. She thought for herself and spoke up for herself. She taught us about the rich tradition of female strength and spirituality found in the early days of our church, and she walked the walk of developing an independent relationship with God.  

In short, I owe the skills I do possess to my mother. And it wasn’t until I became a mother that I realized just how much she did and was. Sometimes, especially when I see myself falling short on the parenting front, I wish that my kids could spend some time in my childhood life.  I would like to see them cleaning the house on Saturday mornings, drawing color coded slips of paper with chore assignments out of a Tupperware container. I wish they could help childhood me weed in the garden and husk corn on the back step. I would love them for them to learn how to pay bills the way I did, by sitting down with my mother and writing out the various checks, per her instructions. But they have the opportunity to see her now, a deeply generous and thoughtful woman who always has fun photo props when we come to visit (i.e. Mardi Gras masks or 15 colorful wigs, y’all), who takes them biking, who helps them bake muffins, who teaches them songs to perform, and more.  

In short, my mother did – and does – her job.  

So… “What did I know, what did I know / of being a mother?” Quite a bit, it turns out, thanks to her example over the years. I am not the same as my mom, and how could I be? But I know that she worked hard and planned well and sacrified a great deal so that I could be…me.