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Health & Fitness

Ask Not What Your Mother Can Do For You!

Are you still a daughter or a son if your mother is gone? I can't tell my mom in face-time "Happy Mother's Day" . Ask Not What Your Mother Can Do For You--Ask What You Can Do for Your Mother!

Ask What You Can Do For Your Mother!

By--Jan Leasure

I try not to be a downer, weepy , judgmental or you know, preachy.  But tomorrow is Mother’s Day so of course my mom, Evelyn, is very much in my thoughts.  I have had this little tile, “Ask Not What Your Mother Can Do For You, Ask What You Can Do For Your Mother,” for so long I can’t even remember when I bought it.  I just love the take of on JFK’s famous, “Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You, Ask What You Can Do For Your Country!” I am/was a daughter.  Are you still a daughter when your parents are gone?  I like to think so.

Now I will preface my chat by saying that I think I really bought the little tile to hang up in my house when my daughters were about 11 & 15 and I was giving them a subliminal message; I am not really a subliminal kind of girl, but the tile conveyed the way I treated my mom and I guess the way I would have hoped that they would treat me in return.  You know how you think your kids are learning by example and learning by osmosis and you don’t have to really be concrete and point things out?  (I will let you answer that for yourself).

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My Mother Was the Queen of my Universe

So many of my friends when I was growing up had “Mom Issues”.  My next door neighbor’s mom, when she was 3, would give her a bag lunch, put her outside at 9 am and not let her in until 4pm — even to go to the bathroom.  She lived a lot at my house all summer.  My best friends in high school all had Mother issues; One unfortunately was bi-polar and chased me away from her house with a scream and a broom, true! Another friend’s mom never gave her the phone when she got a call, my friend was “never home”.  Another HS friend’s mom drank; she drank all the time and it was a huge embarrassment to my friend.  But now, decades later, most of them are healed and are mom’s themselves who’s children will hopefully be celebrating them because they were better moms than their mothers were to them.

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My mom, Evelyn, was my best friend. She acted every day of my life until the day she died on June 01, 2010, that she couldn’t believe her delight that I was her daughter and on this planet.  In her eyes I was the most beautiful, smartest, funniest creature she had ever laid eyes on. This attitude did not hurt my self-esteem let me tell you. (She didn’t have a problem telling me what she didn’t like either BTW; my taste in men, I don’t turn off the lights enough, I’m never home, I work too much and even if I save $800 at the grocery store, it isn’t enough, she could do better).

My mom taught me about self- respect, saving money, having integrity, being fair, How to ride a roller coaster ten times in a row, What to do with S&H Green Stamps, How to say the Pledge of Allegiance when I was two years old–standing me naked out of the bathtub on the toilet (visual).  She taught me how to shop, how to be responsible, how to be a better daughter, human being and mother. She was so smart.  She was a bridge champion and lived with humility.  I can’t call my mom or go downstairs this year and tell her again how lucky I was to have her.  But maybe you can.

This is an order: “Call Your Mother!”  Tell her you love her, thank her for something she did to make your life or you better, if necessary, Apologize if you think there is an elephant in the room, but no matter what, remember this Mother’s Day Weekend, “Ask Not What Your Mother Can Do For You; Ask What You Can Do For Your Mother!”

Feel free to share YOUR Mother stories or leave a message here or on Facebook.  I want to know! Make this Mther's Day a Memorable one!

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