What’s in Mrs. Hale’s Receipt for the Million, 1857?
4171. Mothers, who wish not only to discharge well their own duties in the domestic circle, but to train up their daughters at a later day to make happy and comfortable firesides for their families, should watch well, and guard well, the notions which they imbibe, and with which they grow up.
Mother’s Day
I just got off the phone with my mom a while ago and I am reminded how
blessed I am to be able to discuss with her books, her new assisted living apartment with a view on the world, my writing life, and oh, how should I wash Nana’s best table cloth I just brought back a month ago?
Mom is 96 years old and I love her. I love her for the musical theater she took me to for our girls night out, piano lessons, camp, historical fiction books she loved and shared with me, and her stories of her life growing up in Idaho. I always wanted to live in the West and I have for many years now. I think she trained me up well.
Sometimes we don’t get to say the things we want to say to loved ones, but for the past decade, I have called her every weekend to chat. She has been the subject of Mother’s Day for decades, but on this weekend, this Mother’s Day, I’ll call again and say “Happy Mother’s Day.” What else is there to say? It’s from my heart.
Je t’aime, Maman.
You are lucky indeed to have a 96 year old mother! Mine did not live that long, but her mother lived to be 104 1/2 and was with it until the end. It was amazing to be able to talk to someone who had lived through the entire 20th century and then some. Not just lived through, but paid attention and got involved where it mattered. As I have said about Louisa May Alcott in my MISS ALCOTT’S E-MAIL, she didn’t just live her life, she made, it, she built it, she constructed it, thoughtfully and carefully and with principle.