A Mother's Aura

I've been more excited about Rosemary's career and her role as a mother than I've ever been about business.  And if my head wasn't buried in the sand over the last twelve years, I might have noticed life.   Then, instead of pissing and moaning about my own plight, I could have writing about stuff that really matters.

Grassy and Wanted Wear

As much as I love to hear Rosemary's stories, now the ones about writing, I love to hear the ones about our daughters even more.

Do you remember when the Beatles, Stones and Doors appeared on the Ed Sullivan shows back in the sixties?  Remember the girls?  Take that happiness and enthusiasm and tuck it into your soul.  It's like you got the sun in a box.  This is how I see Rosemary when she is around both of her girls.  She's doesn't act all giddy and goofy, but you can see that sun just wanting to burst from the box.

Victoria, our oldest lives in Cleveland.  I talk to Vickie by phone one fifth of the amount of times that Rosemary does.  It's the times that Rosemary talks to Vickie that I live for.  For me it's story time.  I am pretty sure that Rosemary hears this from me every evening:  "Didja talk to Vic today?"  If she did, I'll throw another cherry log into the campfire, get comfortable and get ready to listen.  I love it!

Animation cloaks Rosemary.  Vickie's triumphs at work usually elicit the most excitement.  And tales of her long work hours cause Rosemary's hands to rest upon her hips while her eyebrows hunker down, eliciting a much different type of excitement.  A much more delicate subject is Vickie's social life.  But Mom doesn't seem to tread very lightly, constantly on the prowl to "fix Vickie up."  Frustration is the animation of the day on Mom's face when Vickie pulls the career card over the social life card.  And robust delight buzzes through the air when recipes are traded back and forth.  At those times in which Rosemary begins to run out of story-telling steam, I selfishly toss out a few questions to keep her going.

Carla is eleven years younger than Vickie.  If Carla is within your presence, you will know it.  She is a human hurricane.  Carla has the innate ability to drive Rosemary to each end of the emotional spectrum.  Somehow, most of her early adventures happened while I was at work.  Like the time our neighbor caught her walking around on our roof at five years old - nude.  Or the time she picked every single flower out of another neighbor's yard.  Or the time she took a stick and rearranged all of the tar yet another neighbor had carefully placed in their driveway seams.  Or the time she fell asleep on the school bus.  When the day care noticed that she didn't get off the bus, they had the bus dispatcher radio to the driver, who by that time was parking the bus for the evening.  They found Carla.

I can still taste the movie theater buttered popcorn.  Cause when Rosemary would tell me the Carla stories, it was better than any movie.  Carla is now fifteen years old, a My Space member, in high school, about to get her temporary driver's permit, can clearly pronounce the word boys and is an all together new source of animation for Rosemary.  I love it!

I am not sure that there is a more beautiful thing in all of Creation than a mother's love for her children.  I'm not talking about the mom who brags and places her child on a pedestal though.  For me it's that sun just wanting to burst from that box.  It's that little smile, that little glow, that little animated gesture and that little bounce in her step when Mom talks about her girls.  That aura is a gift to me from God, and that is when life happens.

Comments

[Rosa Say]

There is something else as "beautiful [a] thing in all of Creation than a mother's love for her children" Dave, and that is the appreciation and respect of the man they call husband and father. You have every wife and mother drooling for you and the love that you reveal to us in the writing of this post; I can guarantee it will get printed up and tucked into more than one man's briefcase.

[Joanna Young]

Rosa, you took the words right out of my mouth. I was thinking about the person who was writing these words too.

What is the man? The rock of the mountain that has been warmed by the sun, that holds its warmth and allows us to come back and touch the earth, the rock, the mountain, when the work of being a woman, a mother, a daughter, makes us sad and tired. It does sometimes you know :)

Dave - hello again. Thanks for your lovely message earlier. I'll reply in a little while.

Joanna

[dave]

Rosa and Joanna - your comments are making my ears turn red. Thank you!

[Karen Wallace]

Dave - I'm not sure I've ever commented here before but as a mother and a wife, how could I not applaud you with a rousing standing ovation for your heart and soul in these two posts.

Your post is not only a gift for Rosemary and your girls, it's a gift to mothers everwhere... for that recognition that comes so little and means so much.

You brought tears to my eyes - happy ones... thank you for your rays of sunshine on this cold winters day down-under.

[Debra Estep]

It's all about love. :)

Thanks Davie for showing
your love for your family.

It all circles around and I know for
a fact that Rosemary's Mom,
Mary is JUST as proud of her girl. !!!