Green Socks and Magnolia Trees

So it's mother's day again. It always sneaks up on me now that I'm half an orphan. I was certain that this year I was immune. When Marcia from work told me Friday afternoon to make sure that I was nice to my mom this weekend, I was able to sincerely laugh it off and explain that I wouldn't be celebrating without making her feel bad. But, it's nearing midnight and all evening I've been unable to shake one single thought, "I'm wearing Mom's socks."

My mom gave me these socks in January, 2006. I remember because she got them from an old friend when she was in the hospital after having her first heart attack. It was a very thoughtful gift and one that I knew was special, even before she died. (Once someone dies, everything they've ever given you becomes special). They're thick and soft. She loved thick, fuzzy socks. I never knew why she gave them to me. I suspect it was a combination of the identity of the friend and her sense of pride making her unable to keep a gift from someone who hadn't contacted her in twenty years until she randomly heard of her hospitalization.

It's funny how it is the little things that trip you up. I can think about my mom and tell stories about her without blanching, but realizing I'm wearing her socks makes me sad. I think about her when the magnolia trees bloom in the spring. She always said that she could never see a magnolia tree without thinking of her own mother. We'd look at them together - her thinking about (and probably missing) her mother, me thinking about this person who meant so much to my mother, but whom I had never met. Now I see the magnolia trees and I think that I will probably have those moments with my own children.

I will see them and miss my mother, while they will wonder what she was like. Maya Angelou said once that trying to describe her mother was like trying to describe a hurricane in all its perfect power. Sometimes I feel like this is an overwhelming task. How can I possibly tell my children about this woman who was so much? Mere words will never convey my mother's true spirit. I want to scream at the unfairness of it and I wonder if my mother felt this way when she would tell me stories of her own mother, knowing that I would never understand who she was and what she had meant to her. Maya Angelou also said that people will forget what you said and did, but never how you made them feel. And so this is the legacy of my mother that I will strive to pass on to my children. I will tell them of things that she said and of all of the times we did things together, but what they will remember and, I hope, pass on to their own children is the joy they feel when I tell them about her sweetness, her sense of humor, the love she held for us and how she would have loved to have held them and told them stories of her own mother and father. It will be enough.