Mother’s Day Reflections

It’s been a year and a half since my mother died unexpectedly from complications following a “successful” surgery to repair an ulcer.

Obviously she’s been on my mind more than usual this week. I’ve spent the last two days in a variety of activities that she enjoyed. I re-read a favorite book of her childhood she had given me, Sawdust in His Shoes. That one is so deep and full of emotions it must wait for a dedicated post to fully explore its significance. I read it every year or two so it can wait. I listened to NPR on the drive from Central Florida to the SW corner of Georgia – Mom was a lifetime supporter of Public Radio and listened to the local affiliate in Springfield 5-6 hours every day. This evening I watched 60 Minutes, one of her favorite TV shows. Morley Safer and Mike Wallace are also gone it seems, but the show still delivers real investigative journalism in a world where TV news has largely turned to soundbites and paparazzi nonsense. Bravo, CBS.

And for a snack I had some fresh fruit, something my mother always prodded me to do, but as a kid I somehow never put fruit in the “snack” category. To me, fresh fruit has always seemed like a standalone thing, or possibly crossing into salad territory. Add some sugar and some dough, and you’ve really got something, but then it’s pie, and everybody likes pie.

I’ve been pondering the concept of trying to define a person with a single word. A difficult proposition at best, probably impossible for anyone with a character more complex than a Kardashian. But in the case of my late mother, Margaret L Fenley, aka Peggy, I nominate “challenging” as a potential candidate.

At her memorial service, several speakers mentioned how “intelligent she was” or how she “made them think”. One of my mother’s modus operandi was to cross-examine you on why you expressed a certain view on some topic. It wasn’t enough to simply have an opinion, you had to be able to explain why. If the issue was one she considered significant, there was a danger of sparking a full-on debate, in which you were expected to substantiate your statements by citing multiple sources that she considered reliable. This habit of challenging people did indeed make you carefully consider your thinking – when the issue and your mood were conducive to such introspection. It could also be damn annoying when you were simply expressing a personal opinion. Does anyone really need to prepare a legal defense as to why they prefer shredded wheat to corn flakes?

I love my mother and naturally many of my own ways of thinking and behaving can be traced directly to her. Mom was not challenging because she wanted to prove to people how smart she was, or even that she disagreed and wanted to prove them wrong. Rather, she truly did want to understand why people thought the way they did. Unlike most of us, she didn’t settle for taking the easy way out by writing somebody off as just being an idiot or ignorant to the facts of a matter – she would challenge them to explain themselves at length even when she disagreed vehemently. Of course that often resulted in a Bones & Spock scene, where the Doctor ends up exasperated and angry while Spock is somewhat baffled over his illogical reaction.

As I age, I hope I am learning to keep this aspect of my own personality under control. It’s like owning a Jack Russell Terrier; sometimes that feisty energy is invigorating, and sometimes they just need a muzzle.

I love you Mom, and I miss you.

-GF