Tag: #Motherlessdaughters

Posted in #Confessions, Mothers

Not My Usual Mother’s Day Post

Posted on by Nancy Malcolm

            I’ve always had to share my birthday month with some pretty well-known festivities:  the end of school, graduations, and Mother’s Day.  Usually at this time of year I become melancholy  at the thought of Mother’s Day and not having my mother to honor.

            I have spent years dreading Mother’s Day.  I’ve slighted my own celebration of being a mother in lieu of loathing all the reminders of what I don’t have and all I have missed.

            I have spent hours smirking at Hallmark commercials and sneering at florist bouquets that I have never gotten to send.

            I have spent an endless amount of time missing my mother and feeling the huge depth of loneliness from having to grow up without her.

            But, what I meant to say is that I still miss her sixty-six years later.

            I still wish I had known her for myself, and not just through my brother and fathers’ memories.

            I still dread the Hallmark commercials and influx of florist bouquets to buy or nightgowns to gift.

            I still wish my daughters could have had a grandmother.

            I still look at her pictures and marvel at her forever youth and beauty.  She never grew old, and as I age, I wonder…do I look like she would have?

            Lately, I have been thinking of all the ways my daddy tried to be a mother to my brother and me.  I’ve spent lots of time being angry at what he didn’t do or say.  I have written volumes about his temper and harsh ways he disciplined us.  But, lately, ever so softly, I have felt the call to see the good.

            Every Saturday night was bath night when I was a little girl.  My daddy would try to curl my hair on pink spongy rollers so I would look presentable for church the next day.

            He bought me an Easter dress and patent leather shoes every spring, complete with a hat and purse.

            In elementary school he planned and executed backyard birthday parties for me and my friends.  We played games, had cake and punch, opened gifts and he always took pictures.

            Daddy made sure I joined Girl Scouts and got to go to camp during the summer.  He let me borrow his Brownie Camera and made sure I had a fresh roll of film for my scouting escapades.

            In 8th grade he paid for me to join Cotillion so I could learn manners, how to dance, and the social rules about dating boys.

            He took us to church and made sure we were baptized.  As I got older, he encouraged me to go to MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) and took me every Sunday evening. (even though my friends and I sometimes left to smoke cigarettes in the park behind the Church!)

            After I got my driver’s license he let me take the family car, a ’63 Chevy Impala, to high school, complete with bench seating, no power steering, and a secret cigarette burn on the floor board I never confessed to.

            Even though my father was a frugal man and pinched every penny he ever had, I always had a winter coat, a formal dress when I needed it, and new school shoes every year.

            He instilled in my brother and me a strong work ethic and a knowledge and appreciation for saving money.  He worked as an electrical engineer for forty years at the same company.  Being a company man, with a pension, was especially important to him.

            Daddy paid for me to attend four years at Baylor University and my brother to go to The University of Texas.  He used the money my mother inherited from her father and saved it all those years, just for our college education.

            My father did a lot of things for my brother and me in the name of: ‘Your mother would have wanted you to…’

            ‘Your mother would have made sure you…’

            Daddy was strict in a lot of ways and had rules he wanted us to follow come hell or high water.  He was practical and pragmatic, and sometimes critical to a fault, but his love and devotion to our mother guided many things he tried to do for us.  Nurturing didn’t come easy for him, nor did saying ‘I love you,’ or ‘I’m proud of you.’ But sometimes we knew it, just by the way he would look at us with tender eyes.

            I was four and my brother was eight when our mother died.  I don’t know if Daddy made a death bed promise to our mother that he would take care of us the way she would have wanted, but he did take care of us and loved us the best he knew how.  I think she both smiled and cringed as she watched us from above.  As a parent, I can imagine how hard it must have been for him, and how much dedication it took to get up every day with a determination to do his best. I appreciate all he did for us and the many ways he showed up as our only parent.

Recently, my brother and I were talking about Daddy and lamenting about something he did when we were kids.  In a moment of compassion, my brother said, “He really did do the best he knew how.  Remember, he was young.  He was only thirty-three years old and had two small children without a mother.”  I was struck by that loving thought.  What thirty-year-old is prepared to go through a spouse’s long illness and subsequent death, much less be left with two young kids?  It is something no one can be prepared for.

Because of my brother’s words, I have more grace toward Daddy, and a deeper understanding of his situation, not just ours.

And, if I could just say one last thing to my father, one thing that might bring a smile to his face and a warmth to his heart, I think it would be this…

Happy Mother’s Day, Daddy.

Posted in Grandmother

Grandma’s Banana Bread

Posted on by Nancy Malcolm

Every November my thoughts turn to family gatherings, beautiful, crisp fall days, pumpkin pie spice, and my grandmother, Martha Margaretha Claughton, born on November 20, 1891.

My grandmother always went by ‘Grandma’.  If you really know me, you know about my grandma.  She was such an important part of my life growing up and even though she was a no-nonsense kind of gal, she influenced my very essence of being a woman, mother, and now, grandmother.  She was strong-minded, and willful, yet gentle when she needed to be.

Grandma lived in Duplex A on Hayden Street in Amarillo, Texas

Today, one of the greatest blessings of my life is being a grandmother.  I never could have imagined the sweetness, the absolute heart-breaking tenderness of holding a grandchild.  It feels holy, like a sacred trust ordained from above, and ever since Boo and I embarked on our journey as grandparents, our lives have changed for the very best.  Being a grandparent suits Boo like a custom-fit Giorgio Armani in midnight blue.  Perfection.

As for me, the transformation has been more subtle.  My heart feels bigger, my spirit is gentler, and my patience is sometimes like the Energizer Bunny, which is a surprise to my daughters who definitely didn’t get a patient mom.  My grandkids call me Nannie, and I swear it is the sweetest sound on earth to hear one of them call me by that name. 

When my girls were younger and I worked full time, I felt a certain hurriedness to our days.  Panic at not getting ‘it’ all accomplished, and not quite good enough according to Better Homes and Gardens.  I secretly envied all of my friends who were stay-at-home moms.  I compared myself to them, like apples to oranges. And when my single mom days were upon us, I even felt more inept at the perfection I saw in others.  I was judging my insides by other people’s outsides.

Losing my own mother at a very young age, I longed for a momma like a lone, train whistle carries on the wind, winsome and low.  Through it all, Grandma was there.  Steady, true, and happily scooping me up in her soft, capable arms.  I don’t know where I would be today if I hadn’t had my grandma.

 Grandma stepped in with her homemade quilts and flapjacks made in the cast iron skillet.  She cooked our lunch every Sunday after Church.  She made my clothes and when I was old enough, she taught me to use the old Singer sewing machine.  She taught me to play Canasta, plant Zinnia’s in the garden, and make homemade banana bread.  She loved me the very best she could.  Always.

And today, all these years later, I’m standing in my kitchen mixing up the banana bread to bake and chopping the pecans for Grandma’s pecan pie that I’ll take to my brother’s for Thanksgiving.  I always wear her pearls on Thanksgiving day and I know how proud she would be that we think of her and remember her special recipes and her love.

I’m sharing Grandma’s Banana Bread recipe in hopes that you will try it someday, and if you do, think about my grandma.  She always baked this bread in coffee cans (Folger’s) only because she never owned a loaf pan, so coffee cans are the original and preferred way.  I don’t use pecans in ours because some of our grandkids have nut allergies, but if you can have the pecans, please do!

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all and Happy Birthday, Grandma!! 

Grandma’s Banana Nut Bread

1 cup sugar

½ cup shortening (I use vegetable oil)

2 eggs

1 ½ cup mashed bananas

2 cups flour

Pinch salt

1 tsp. baking soda

½ cup chopped pecans

Bake in greased coffee cans (or loaf pan)

350 degrees for 55-60 min.

Posted in #Confessions, Aging

On Becoming Seventy or How I Thought I Would Be Grown-up By Now

Posted on by Nancy Malcolm

            I cried the year I turned twenty-nine.  I boohooed and made such a big deal out of the last year of my twenties.  “I’ll have to be grown up now and learn about mortgages.  I’ll have to stop wearing short shorts and start acting more mature.  Should I cut my hair?”  These are the thoughts that swam through my mind as a young mother of two and looking back now, I wonder why I wasted the last year of my twenties on such foolishness.  Turning thirty did not end my short shorts days.

Daughter Lee in middle, little Amy K. daughter of a sweet friend, and me in short shorts…Rockport, Texas

            Ten years later, remembering my silly response, I stated that thirty-nine would definitely, absolutely be the year I became a real adult. I had one year to prepare myself for the forties, which everyone knows is the hallmark of maturity, the pinnacle of wisdom and sophistication.  My forties were filled with my children growing up, me finishing graduate school, and having a mortgage.  I felt mature beyond my years, but my shorts were getting a little longer, and I started buying readers at Walgreens.

            Thankfully, there was no angst the year I turned forty-nine: only a peaceful resignation that time marches on if you’re lucky.  Silently I marched into my fiftieth birthday with wonder and awe, and in true Boo fashion, my husband surprised me with a special gift. 

We celebrated quietly at home with a home-cooked meal and a delicious strawberry cake made lovingly by Boo. We were sitting at the table having just finished cake when a phone started to ring.  It wasn’t my landline phone, the ring was coming from one of my yet-to-be-opened birthday gifts. 
“Where is that coming from?  Why is my gift ringing?” I questioned.  “Boo!  What did you do?”

            And with that, I ripped the paper off of my gift, which was a beautiful UT Texas orange, flip phone.  My first, very own cell phone. “Hello?”  I said.

            “Surprise!” my daughter yelled. “You got a cell phone!  Happy Fiftieth!”

            Not only did turning fifty bring me a cell phone and other wonderful gifts, but it also brought me a huge red zit on the side of my cheek.  The location made it unable for me to disguise, plus it hurt like heck.

Welcome to your fifties, it said!  You thought you were over teenage acne, but alas, you’re not grown up yet!

Not long after my birthday zit, I had to have a hysterectomy and began hormone replacement therapy.  What is happening?  I’m not old enough to be over zits but too old to have children.  Fifty-one brought me a nice reprieve.

            Turning fifty-five or The Double Nickel, as Boo calls it, was like getting a bonus.  At fifty-five you are considered a Senior, at least AARP says you are.  IHOP, Chili’s, and McDonald’s want to give you freebies or discounted menus and even car rentals want to give you 10% off.  There’s quite a list of establishments that want to help you save money.  So, I ended my fifties on a high note by retiring and starting what some might refer to as living my best life. (in capris, not short shorts)

            When I heard that sixty was the new forty, I held onto that as I slid perilously into the big six zero.  But sixty-five brought with it all kinds of stuff that was hard to ignore.  For one thing, those dang Medicare phone calls started, and the commercials.  “Call this number NOW!”  All of a sudden my mailbox was flooded with advertisements for walk-in bathtubs, electric stair chairs, and even more discounts for seniors.  Was I now a true senior?  A senior-senior?  As the fliers for Medical Alert Systems and adult diapers kept flooding in, I realized that I’d made it.  I was NOW a mature adult.  Grown-up to the max.  The day I signed up for Medicare I felt as if I were in a barrel about to go over Niagara Falls.  No turning back.

                        And so it is as I approach my seventieth year of life.

            My mother was only thirty-three when she died.  I am immensely aware of my good fortune and blessings to have lived such a life as I have.  Her early death is not lost on me as I reflect on all she missed and the fact that she did not have the opportunity to grow old. It is a privilege denied to many.

            I know the true meaning of when you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything.  I used to lament about my hands, saying, “I’ve got my grandma’s hands!  Arthritic, wrinkled, and veiny.”  But, these hands have held my children and grandchildren and they’ve reached for Boo to steady me in life.  They’ve made meals, graded papers, planted flowers, and held the hands of loved ones who have passed from this earth.  I’m proud of them and all the ways they’ve shown up for me.  My hands tell the story of a life well lived.

My grandma was crowned Valentine Queen of her nursing home. (1980’s)

            So, on May 1, 2023, I will quietly arrive at my seventieth year of life, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.   Gladly, I have not squandered this year worrying or plotting.  I’m neither afraid nor embarrassed. I am simply humbled and very grateful. 

And as for the short shorts, well I had a good run.  It doesn’t seem to matter so much anymore, and if seventy doesn’t say “mature” I don’t know what will because eighty is the new sixty and twice as fun as forty.