Maybe now.... Week 2 Chapter 3

I read Chapter 3 last night.  I needed to get a head start on the reading for this week since it will be a busy one, plus it just seemed like a good time to settle into the recliner and read the next chapters.

I was reading Nicki's commentary about Leah and Rachel. Each time Leah had a baby she thought that maybe, just maybe, Jacob would love her. Nicki's point is that our blessings are not given to us to gain the respect or the love of others. They are given to us for what He intends us to be, to make us who we are.

Skip to something that happened a couple of weeks ago. I received a letter from the attorney who is settling Mom's estate. Remember that?  I shared the words of his last paragraph about our cooperation and how he was sure Mom was proud of us. 

Now sometimes people who don't know the entire story of my life or remember how it was while I was growing up suggest that maybe Mom's actions and remarks and her treatment of us were things that deteriorated as she grew older (as sometimes happens with older people). I insist and my sister does to that she had ALWAYS been mean, critical, and self-centered.

Back to pages 45-46. Because I always try to find my own connection to what we are reading, it hit me immediately that I did have a similar situation to Leah's. Only it wasn't my husband I was always trying to please. It was always my mother.

I remember thinking that when I graduated from high school, 3rd in my class of 208 people, a transplant to southern Indiana from Ohio, that she would be proud of me and love me. No, she wasnt' and she didn't.

I thought that maybe when I graduated with my BS degree from Indiana State University that she would be proud of me. No, she came to my graduation and complained that she had to come, that she could have been doing something else with her time.

I thought that maybe when I got married, that she would be proud of me and stop telling everyone how plain and homely I was, that I would never find a husband, that my main goal in life was to be an old maid....but no. She wasn't happy for me, wouldn't help me plan my wedding, didn't shop with me for my wedding dress, and complained about how much money they had to spend (and Gary and I paid for most of our wedding ourselves). And Gary? He was just a farmer. (scoff scoff)

Maybe when I received my Masters degree from Purdue.....no. She didn't even acknowledge it. Cards from my grandmother, all of my aunts and uncles, gifts too---but not even a card from Mom and Dad. Not even a congratulations from her (Dad told me he was proud of me).

Same thing when the girls were born. She always found something wrong with each of them and did each time she saw them.

Same thing each and every time we did something to remodel and renovate our old farmhouse--new windows, new drywall, new carpet, paint everywhere several times, new bathroom, new roof, new siding, added a sunroom, built a patio and new sidewalk through the backyard to it, landscaping, painting the outbuildings (we still lived in a 'dump' as she reminded me the last time she was here which was four years ago for Megan's baby shower)

I finally stopped telling her anything that I thought she might be proud of me for---or love me for....because I knew she would either diminish it in some way, make fun of it, or toss it aside.

But just as NIcki has said, the purpose of my blessings (two degrees that I worked hard for, a wonderful marriage, two super daughters, a great house that we love, a career that I have had not just one but TWO retirements from) is not for her to be proud of me, but to make me the person that I am.

My daughters are a blessing to ME and I hope I have blessed them by being their mother. My students - hopefully I have been a blessing to, well, MOST of them! And the list goes on. I am here to be a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a sister, an aunt,  a teacher, a friend, a quilter, a Christian, a good neighbor. Not to be someone that my mother is proud of. That was not my purpose. It would have been nice, but it is not the reason I am here.

Nicki's message in this chapter probably hit me harder than those in the first two.  "Maybe Now" is something that was such a big part of my life from the time I was in high school until a few years ago, even though I had stopped sharing things with Mom because I knew it didn't matter to her.

Truth #2:  See it like it really is.  And being me.  A wife.  A mother. A grandmother.  A sister.  A friend. A quilter. Most of all a child of God.  That is how it really is.  No more "Maybe now..."