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| Rhoda Cryder Smith, me, Mom, and Lois Smith Ney. |
Mother's Day 2017 is wrapping up for the year, but my thoughts are still with mothers everywhere. I am blessed to have my Mom just a phone call away. We enjoy traveling together and are always planning our next adventure.
I've always envied pairs that were so clearly mother-daughter; they looked that much alike. I never thought I much looked like my mother but there is no denying I am her daughter. Just as there is no denying she is her mother's daughter, despite the fact they don't look much alike either. Our "resemblance" is evident in many other ways. Creativity, craftiness, common sense, problem solving, resilience and independence to name just a few.
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| Mary Greenwalt Cryder |
And an occasional disregard for rules. I was visiting my grandparents on Mother's Day one year and we attended church together. They were handing out red carnations for people whose mothers were living and white to those whose mothers were not. Despite the fact my great-grandmother had been gone for over a decade, my grandmother helped herself to a red flower. I was aghast and sure she were going to be challenged for her selection. I asked her why she did that. "I like the red ones better" was her nonchalant reply. I've admired that attitude many times over the years and happily adopted it for myself.
The female half of my ancestry has always been more interesting to me than the male half. Maybe it's because these women have been harder to find, hidden behind the names of their husbands and discovering their stories feels like a victory. Maybe it's because -- along the lines of Ginger Rogers doing everything Fred Astaire did "backwards and in high heels" -- the women in our families have been responsible for so many things that don't get the appreciation they deserve.
I had already been pondering the four-generation family photograph above when The Family Circus offered up its own version earlier this week. I don't know exactly the reason behind my sourpuss expression, but I do know that that picture represents where I come from. You may not think we look alike but deeply embedded in our DNA are the strands that bind us together, that have carried our talents and traits forward. Thank you Mom, Lois, Rhoda, Mary, Louisa, Sophia and all the previous generations waiting to be discovered, for making me the person I am.
