THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605080049
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K2 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REAL MOMENTS
SOURCE: BY PATTI GASKINS LOOP
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
SHOPPING for the right Mother's Day card is no easy task. Sometimes the sentiments are too serious or too fussy, while others are just plain tacky. They would never do. I spend forever looking for one with humor and good taste. Just like my Mom.
Another problem comes in finding a card with a meaningful illustration. Sometimes I think it'd be easier to make her a card. With the help of computers, that's a possibility.
This ideal card would help my mother recall the particular flair she used when performing ``ordinary tasks.'' Little things. Big things. I call them 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'' and 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.
Since one of her greatest pleasures in life 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.'' Seven decades 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, but instead, she opted to instill trust and confidence. What a gift! To this day, the only beach-related regret she has from our childhood was when she bought us beige-colored swim suits and accidentally lost sight of us in the sandy background.
Another Mother's Day card illustration would show her in the whirlwind of her kitchen: cabinet doors and drawers pulled out. Back when ``home delivery'' meant milk, not pizza, my mother crafted bountiful meals without help from a microwave or food processor. If my mother never won a cooking contest, it's because she never entered. As the only daughter and ``assistant to the chef,'' I learned some valuable principles of cooking, which 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. It's the difference between success or failure!
No card for my mom would be complete without showing her at the ironing board. Unless it was Christmas or some other special occasion, that's where you could find her. In the pre-polyester age when cotton was king, my mother ironed more items of clothing in a week than Mozart had notes in a symphony. While leaning over the board, she quite often listened to the highlights of our day or sang a certain hymn: ``There's within my heart a melody - Jesus whispers sweet and low, `Fear not, I am with thee - peace, be still,' in all of life's ebb and flow.''
As you can probably imagine, a great deal of ``ebb and flow'' took place in our family of five children. The only credit my mother will take for any success we've achieved is that she held us and rocked us when we were babies. She says God knew us before we were born, knit us in her womb, and then she held us in her lap . . . for a time.
And then when grandchildren came, my mom had another chance to hold and rock them as babies.
When I was at my mother's home recently, a grandson came to visit with his sweetheart. Before their arrival, my mother prepared a meal and 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.
MEMO: Miriam Warren, the subject of all this praise, lives in Portsmouth. Her
daughter Patti Gaskins Loop lives in Blacksburg and is an elementary
school guidance counselor. Mrs. Warren also has four sons _ Larry, Jim,
Richard and Tom Gaskins. by CNB