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f I could be a mother all over again, I know one thing I would never change ... how much I loved each of you. I wanted to be a mother from the time I was a little girl. I played with dolls long after the other girls had given them up. So being a mother and holding and rocking and nursing and caring for you was the joy of my life. But I look back on it now, and I think I probably treated you like my dolls. I picked you up if you cried. I held you when your ears ached. As long as you were in pain, I wanted to be there with you. But keeping you happy, safe, healthy, polite and studious seemed to be the responsibility of my mothering. Happy could be lots of things: sleigh riding, picnics, swimming, parties for you and your friends, learning to bake or sew, or even learning to skate or ride a bike. Those were things that I was familiar with and knew how to help you learn.
But today looking back on how rich I might have made your lives if I had known then the things I have learned now - oh, how exciting it would be.
I would begin with sight. Not having your eyes tested for glasses: that I knew about and did - but learning to really see things. To see the way the sky changes color with just a little gust of wind. To see the leaves twist in the wind and shimmer with light. I’d like to teach your eyes to take in the shades of green and blue that rush across the waves or the sky, to see shapes and forms, not as objects but masses of color that change as you turn away from them; to see the world as an exciting masterpiece; to see a flower as a perfect vision. When the motto used to be “Stop and smell the roses,” I didn’t really understand. Yes, that is what I would do if I could start all over again with each of you. I’d stop and smell the roses with you and look at their colors and enjoy the fact that they exist.
Hearing, I’d teach you about really hearing. I know that I miss lots of words that I used to hear. I’m eighty-three and can’t hear much anymore. I know that my taste in music has not changed with the times, and I never wanted to hear your music! But also I now listen to the sound of the surf, or a train whistle in the night, or a loon over the lake in the early morning. Those are sounds that I appreciate today, and I wonder if I ever told you about the beauty of those sounds. Yes, I would have a new approach to teaching you about listening and hearing, not just to human words or to be quiet when adults are speaking, but to the sounds that are always around us. The city sounds of rumbling buses and taxi doors slamming, of street vendors hawking their wares or sirens telling us of an emergency, or the country sounds that are quieter and more peaceful. Yes, I think I would teach you about the beauty that enters through our ears.
And also I’d teach you to hear people’s feelings and hopes and dreams, the truth behind their words. I’d help you to hear pain and need, and I’d help you know how to respond. I’d help you to hear the whole world, in all its complexity.
“If onlys” aren’t much good though. I’m not a mother again, and my two daughters are both mothers and my four granddaughters are on their way to becoming mothers! No more babies to hold, children to teach. I miss that from time to time, but I notice that even though I don’t have those children to teach, I have never stopped teaching myself.
- Julie Firman
Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can.
- Danny Kaye