Remembering your support systems
I am often now spending time in North Carolina. Where I stay there is a lake nearby with a nicely manicured walking path. Walking there once a day has become a ritual. It is beautiful. It is peaceful. It is a place to make acquaintances. As what happened the other day…..
I often pass the same people and recognize the seniors that are trying to get their daily exercise, the runners who swiftly but politely pass by to the right with their determined stance and multi-colored headphones. The stay-at-home Moms and Dads who have little ones out early in the day to beat the heat. And often there is opportunity to say hello and/or to meet others.
This happened the other day. As I stopped to tie my sneaker I noticed a woman my age with her elderly mother approaching. They recognized me and stopped for introductions. Never void of my business cards, I gave the younger woman my card once she identified herself as a local business owner. The conversation moved to business, politics, religion and weather. She had opinions, her mother as well. They were as opposite as the east and west sides of the lake.
After some interesting exchanges, the mother went to sit on a nearby swing to watch the ducks on the lake. Her daughter and I – the two ‘business owners’ – kept up the conversation. You couldn’t help but notice that the daughter was well traveled, well educated and obviously extremely successful. As she went on and on about her very enlightened view of the world, politics and global events it didn’t escape me how she from time to time looked over at her mother. With love, but also with a bit of a condescending glance, she almost seemed embarrassed that her Mom was not as worldly as her and once mentioned her mother’s ‘generational old fashioned views’…
The next day the daughter was gone and I saw the mother quietly strolling the path alone. I caught up to her and we walked the lake together. Chatting of family, grandchildren and religion – she seemed interestingly the ‘personal side’ to her daughter’s earlier ‘business-like’ conversation with me. I gradually learned of this woman’s life. How she happily gave up her education to be a stay-at-home Mom. How she worked nights after her daughter was asleep to save money so that her little girl would someday attend college debt free. And that this had led her daughter the opportunity to also extensively travel. How she nightly was on her knees praying for her daughters future and now still kept up the ritual “until my knees give out” …to “ensure her daughter’s health and safety”…
I wonder how many times we do that with the people who supported us through childhood and beyond. How we condescend to them and wish they would only be as enlightened as us. How we truly know the world – life’s truths – and pooh pooh their old fashioned thinking. Maybe we should put them on a pedestal and thank them for getting us where we are. Their prayers, their hard work, their care taking. Maybe we aren’t so damned smart and wouldn’t have had our wonderful life experiences without them. Maybe them being old-fashioned is just that they were smart enough to get us where we are today.
Maybe we should remember where our support came from before we even learned how to walk.
Empire Interpreting 