Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

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My mom, the cheerleader

Today is my mom’s birthday. To celebrate, my husband, children and I are going to Shady Maple, the smorgasbord to end all smorgasbords, because today also happens to be his birthday. Although my mom’s birthday came first, in recent years, that she shares the day with my husband has been to her disadvantage. Understandably, my efforts at birthday celebration have been more toward my husband than my mother. I don’t think she minds. At least, she’d never say she did. But I know she deserves better. I didn’t even send her a card this year. Perhaps this will make up for that.

That’s my mom. The one in front with the glasses doing the splits. Cute, huh? She was in eighth grade at the time. She went on to be a cheerleader in high school. (Thanks, by the way, go out to my Grandma and Grandpa for helping secure this photo and to Julie at the Lee County Council on Aging for scanning and e-mailing it to me. Couldn’t have done it without any of you!)

We used to tease my mom about her cheerleader ways. She’s kinda bubbly, outgoing and enthusiastic about things. She smiles a lot. She never really stopped being a cheerleader.

My mom has always been my biggest encourager. She wanted me to “go for it” whenever possible. When I didn’t make the singing group in middle school, she suggested I try out for the pom squad. When I got cut from the volleyball squad in high school, she went and talked to the coach. She couldn’t change the outcome, but she wanted to try. She cheered me on in softball every summer. Even now, she’ll tell the world when I do something that makes her proud.

And those are just the things I can remember.

What amazes me about my mom, now that I’m a mom, is how she did it. Maybe it’s the way she’s wired. But when she had two kids, she was in her early 20s. Young. Without much money. Working to make ends meet. To her credit, she did have my dad. Some in her situation didn’t have someone to share the struggle with.

Me? I’m in a similar boat, but I’m 10 years older than my mom was. For some reason I think that should make me wiser or more capable of handling the burden that motherhood sometimes is. I don’t think age, in that case, matters.

My friends when I was in school always thought my mom was cool, I think because she was a bit younger than a lot of their parents. When I was in college, she got a tattoo, and I think that upped her cool factor with my college friends.

I didn’t see it so much. It’s hard to think of your mom as cool, sometimes.

I know I’ve underappreciated her through the years. And while I sometimes wish certain things had been different, I can’t change who I had for a mom, nor would I want to.

While wiping down our kitchen table, I think of my mom. Weird, I know. But it’s the sort of thing she did after dinner or before, depending on the condition of the table. Our kitchen table reminds me of the one we had growing up, the one my parents still have. So, when I’m cleaning up the crusted food the 2-year-old has left at her spot, or the crumbs from a snack, I think of my mom.

I think of how we would talk about our day in the kitchen while she made dinner. I would sit on a stool by the counter. She was always interested in my life. And I couldn’t hide anything from her, not even the boys I was interested in. She could see right through me. Maybe because it wasn’t so long ago that she had been there.

I don’t know when it happened, but there came a time when she started sharing about her day. And we could help each other through the rough times. Growing up, she was my best friend.

Now that she’s a Nana to my children, and we live farther away from each other, the relationship has changed. It’s not better or worse, just different. And good, I think.

Since my brother and I left the house, she and my dad have been able to do what they missed while raising us: have a life outside of parenting. Vacations, motorcycle rides, leisure pursuits.

When I became an adult (after college? when I moved out of the house? when I got married?), I didn’t need my mom as much. I had best friends I could call or write or e-mail and tell about my day. They helped me through the burdens and still do. I had a job, a life outside my family. Even now, I don’t talk to my mom more than once a week, usually.

But I miss her, sometimes. And I enjoy the times we get to visit.

And recently I’ve been thinking about how much of who I am is because of who she is and what she did. My parents pushed my brother and I to get an education, to go to college, something else they missed out on because they were raising us. My parents are intelligent, driven, passionate people. They worked hard to make sure that the jobs they had to make ends meet weren’t the end of the road. My mom worked her way up in the school system to a good position in the district office. My dad built himself a successful business. They took out loans so my brother and I could go to college. He’s a teacher. I was a journalist. Other kids in the same family situation might not have been so blessed.

OK, so that’s a really long-winded way to say “Happy birthday, Mom.” I love you. And I’m glad you’re my mom.

I hope you don’t read this at work, or before work, or any other time when you might not want to cry. Hope the picture doesn’t embarrass you. And thanks for being my No. 1 cheerleader.

Two years isn’t much in the land of the Dutch

I drove past Salvation Army today, another Wednesday Family Day where clothes are half off, meaning the parking lot is over full. And I remember my excitement, two years ago, when we drove past the SA for the first time on the way into town. It was late, much too late to be hauling most of our earthly belongings the second half of a 700-mile journey. But I was relieved to see the SA. And the Wal-Mart. Two familiar signs in a land of foreignness.

Two years ago, you see, we moved from Charleston, Illinois, where we had lived for a year, to Myerstown, Pennsylvania, where we have now lived for two years, so that my husband could begin attending seminary. Not only was this an entirely different state, it was a culture much unknown to us.

Moving to Charleston after we got married was not as much of a stretch. My husband had lived there during a previous stint at Eastern Illinois University and we were still in our home state. We knew who the governor was, even if we thought he was nuts, and how to pronounce his name, even if we couldn’t spell it (Blago-j? y? a? vich?). We knew its history, thanks to fifth grade, and who its famous people were. We didn’t have to ask, “Where is that, again?” every time people told us where they lived. The grocery and retail stores had the same names as the ones at which we shopped at home.

All of that changed when we moved to Pennsylvania.

But in the past two years, we’ve adapted, like most people who move from one state to another do. I’m not saying we’ve done anything incredible in the eyes of the world, but as I look back, I realize how much fear and wonder has been replaced by comfort and familiarity.

I no longer rush to the window hoping to catch a glimpse of an Amish buggy as it clip-clops down the street. I happily shop at grocery stores called Dutchway, Hornings and Giant. We don’t get lost as much when we go out for a drive, an errand or something fun. And I’m learning, little by little, what it means to be Pennsylvania Dutch.

We’re well settled in, but to most of our community, we’re still the newbies. Most of the people we know have lived here all their lives and if they leave, it’s for vacation. (We sometimes joke that central Pennsylvanians think the world ends at the Mississippi River.) Their families live here, something we often envy. And they know that “Kumm Esse,” the name of a popular diner in town, is an invitation to eat, not a random placing of letters on a sign.

At his current pace, my husband is halfway done with seminary. And Myerstown has become home. Not a replacement for the home from which we came, but an addition to our lives.

We may not be called to be here longer than it takes my husband to complete his education, but if we are, I won’t be sad. I’m just not sure I’ll ever really be Dutch. I think you have to be born into it. They say around here, jokingly I hope, “If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.” I wonder if they adopt.