ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605130020
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: Guest Column
SOURCE: PATTI GASKINS LOOP
Shopping for the right Mother's Day card is not such an easy task. Sometimes the sentiments are deadly serious or too fussy. Others are just plain tacky. I'll be looking for a card that mixes humor and good taste, one just like my mom.
This ideal card would help my mother recall the particular flair she used when performing "ordinary tasks." Little things. Big things. If done by a less familiar acquaintance, I'd recognize them as "random acts of kindness." The same deeds, done by my mother, I'd call random acts of love.
One illustration would show her playing the piano. That's one method she used to get five children out of bed in time for school. Generally, she'd play "How Great Thou Art." If we didn't get up right away, she'd start to sing all the verses, a little off-key. This, with the help of the overhead light, usually did the trick. With her encouragement, we all made it through school a couple of times over.
Because one of her greatest pleasures has always been going to the ocean, another illustration would show her beachcombing or sitting in a white Adirondack chair reading "A Gift From the Sea" or "Shell Seekers." Seventy years ago there was little demand for swimming lessons in the mountain town where she grew up, so my mother never learned to swim. But, putting her own fears aside, she cheered us on so we would learn.
How easily she could have instilled fear. Instead, she instilled trust and confidence.
One of the Mother's Day card illustrations would show her in the whirlwind of her kitchen: cabinet doors open and drawers pulled out. As only daughter and assistant to the chef, I learned some valuable principles of cooking that also apply to life:
1. Measuring - more isn't always better;
2. Sifting - always refine your product until it is of the highest quality;
3. Timing - means success or failure!
Over the years, the compliments my mother received on her cooking were usually subtle. An unexpected one came from another mother whose son paid a dollar for the extra venison sandwich my brother had asked for in his school lunch.
A great deal of ebb and flow took place in our large family. Rearing us was done with a hope and a prayer. For any success we may have achieved in life, my mother only credits herself with loving to hold and rock us as babies.
God knew us before we were born, knit us in her womb, and then my mother held us in her lap ... for a time. Then came the grandchildren and she had another chance to hold and rock them as babies.
Now another generation is emerging. When I was home recently, a grandson came to visit with his sweetheart. Before their arrival, I helped her straighten up the house.
While dusting her desk, I noticed she had kept the Mother's Day card I had sent her last year. It pictured a little girl playing dress up. She wore red high heels, an oversized hat and knee-length beads. Inside the inscription read, "Mom, your shoes are hard to fill." Guess that really says it all.
Patti Gaskins Loop lives in Blacksburg and is a counselor in the Giles County schools. Her mother, Miriam Warren, has five proud children.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB