I love my daughter. I love having her visit, and I love how we slip into a comfortable companionship around making meals, talking, laughing, reminiscing and being outside. I love feeling that we are genuine with each other. It wasn’t always this way, of course, especially not when she was a teenager and I was an anxious mother. Ah, but it’s wonderful to mature.
I wonder how my relationship with my children would be different if my husband were still alive. Would we act as advisers? Would we be cheerleaders? Would we be judgmental? Would we be willing to share our mistakes and successes? Would we be anxious? Would we be distant?
I guess I feel like I can be more transparent, perhaps as if hindsight had opened up a window. I am able to offer my marriage as an example without feeling like I am betraying any confidence.
scillagrace 
What a lovely, lovely post…funny, I’ve been thinking about my oldest today…and wondering…
I also love her hugs.
With mine all the way in Montana, for a year, all I can get is “hugs” over the phone .
There are some advantages to technology from this century!
Nice post.
My mother and I (long story) no longer speak. But I learned a lot from watching my father and step-mother. She was not a kind person to me most of the time but she was a devoted wife and they were close. I always envied them working in the same field and being able to guide and mentor one another…my husband and I are both journalists so I now have this in my marriage as well and really appreciate it.
My mother was super-frugal and I learned to be cheap, to save and invest my income. That was a useful lesson. It’s so easy to blow your “extra” cash but I save 15 to 25% of my annual income, and that requires discipline and an example.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting! My mother was a self-avowed Scot — frugal and judicious with money, trained by her mother to be a business woman and fortunate enough to marry into affluence. I have a sort of primal distaste for debt…that might be her gift to me.
Thank you for this post and thank you for your gracious hospitality this weekend (and thanks to Steve for the CD!) I love visiting you and I’m so glad that we can talk about the hard stuff. Thanks for being a great mommy 🙂 I love you very much.
I love you, too, sweetie! 🙂
I love the photo of the tin cups!
Parental influence runs quite deep and it is hard to tease out which subsequent choices of mine are a legacy and which are rebellion. It’s been so very long since I was in their sphere of influence that I’ve done a helluva lot of both and come to my own conclusions about how I want to live.
Those cups are my water bottles for the season…no more plastic! “Legacy” and “rebellion” are great names for the ingredients in the soup, and I’m sure there are more.
Love the images. Heartfelt post.
Thanks!