Remembering Mother

I am glad someone came up with the idea of celebrating Mothers. 

My Mother was born in 1904

My Mother was a beautiful young woman

 This is my Mother when I was a child. Without her love, concern, and support, I don't know what I would have done.

My mother taught me so much that has helped me including how to meet and talk to strangers. She did not act like a teacher and say do this or do that. Mother taught me by letting her life be my classroom. 

I was a shy and sensitive teen. I saw myself as a skinny girl who wore glasses. I didn't think anything could be worse. So,  when my mother smiled and spoke to strangers, often started a conversation while we waited in line or sat in a waiting room, I was embarrassed. I didn't want any attention drawn to us, to me, especially. Looking back, I realize that I was a pretty young girl, quiet beside my mother and often my darling younger sister was with us, so it was natural for the mature man or woman, stranger, to look at us, smile and say something to us or about us.

Now I am the one who speaks to strangers and begins conversations. 

Recently I left a doctor's in a nearby town around 4:30 PM. As I drove away I remembered that Mike's Seafood restaurant opened for dinner late in the afternoon. I have been wanting some fried oysters for a long time. I wished I could go down to the Florida coast and eat seafood every day. 

So I headed for the restaurant feeling sure that the usual line of waiting customers would not be so long at this time of day. I use a cane now when I have to walk even a short distance. It is mainly for balance. Seems since my knee surgery, I am not always confident in my walking, so using a cane is helpful. 

When I opened the door the older couple I had seen enter ahead of me was right there only a few steps from the door. They looked back at me and smiled. 

I exclaimed I didn't think they would be so crowded this early."What time do they open," I asked.

The female member of the couple, a woman with a kind face and nice smile, said, "Five o'clock. They aren't open yet." 

I looked at my watch. Four forty-five. "Oh, I don't think I can stand here that long."

"Are you alone?" she asked.

I told her, "Yes, I thought they might not have a line at this time of day. Guess I will come another time."

As I turned to leave, two more people came in. My friendly couple said, "No, no. You don't have to leave." She took my arm and said, "Just go over to a table and wait until we get up to the cashier. Then you can join us, and order your dinner."

At this restaurant, the customers all order and pay for their dinner at one window with one cashier. Then they go to their table and wait.  Although I protested and asked if they were sure, both of them said I was just to sit at a table and watch for them at the window.

About fifty minutes later Dru (I learned her name later) and her nice husband were close to the counter and the cashier. They motioned for me to come and join them. Another smiling lady had joined them, too. All three insisted I place my order first. Then they asked if I would like to sit with them. 

"Are you sure? I don't want to impose."

"Oh, sure. See that big table in the back. We are sitting with that group."

And so the new woman walked with me to the table. Asked my name and called out to the large group at the table, "This is Glenda Beall. She's joining us tonight." The surprised senior group called out hello, Glenda! Someone brought over a chair and I sat down. 

For the next hour, Dru and I talked like we had known each other a long time. As usual, someone said, "Are you Glenda the Good Witch?" And I said, "Yes. The Good Witch." Everyone laughed. I asked the two women who sat on either side of me, "What are your names?" That was when I learned Dru's name. "I hate my name," she said."Drusilla, one of the ugly stepdaughters! That's why I go by Dru."

What started out to be dinner alone became an hour of dining with interesting and fun people. My food came out first which seemed odd, but I didn't finish eating until my new friends completed their meals because I was talking and listening to the conversation around me and with me. 

My mother would be so proud of me and happy that I had learned from her to talk to strangers. 

Now that my mother is gone, celebrating Mothers' Day is often sad for me. But tomorrow I will celebrate my most wonderful mother and smile.

My beloved Mother when I was in high school. This is the image I usually think of when I picture her in my mind.

Tell me about your mother. What did you learn from her?

New Year's Coming - Bring it on!

2015 flew past as all the years seem to do now, each day seemingly shorter. Today as I sit here on December 28 with my doors and windows open to enjoy the warm temperatures and the sound of a slow rain falling in my woods, I wish for many more days like this. Quiet times to observe nature and hear sounds I don't hear when my heat pump is on or my AC is blasting. 

I think I need more quiet time like this, but it seems time passes too quickly. Since I found my voice and became the woman I had inside me all these years, there is no end to all the things I want to do, to see, to become part of. 

On my way home Sunday, I stopped to eat at a popular steak house. I had totally forgotten it was Sunday. The past few days had seemed like Sunday to me with all the Christmas celebrations going on. With only a choice of sitting at the bar or waiting a long time, I chose the bar. I ended up sitting where the bar curved around and became a table of ordinary height. A single woman sat two seats over and right away she began a conversation. I learned that she was 80 years old and lived alone in Elijay, GA where the steak house was located. She had ordered a hamburger, but I used a gift card I had received and ordered a prime rib dinner. Oh, was it good!

We enjoyed the best conversation while we ate our meal. I don't know her name, and she doesn't know mine. We will not likely ever meet again, but she said she was glad I had sat down beside her because she had enjoyed getting to know me. "I don't like to eat alone," she said.

I think she often eats alone. Her husband is in Alaska. Not for a visit, but he lives there. Her grown children in the Atlanta area seldom come to visit, she told me. But she loves her house in the mountains, being so close to nature, seeing bear cubs and wild turkeys in her yard. 

We discussed the health problems that often come with age and how difficult it is to find a doctor who will listen while you tell them what you know about your own body. She said her children have no clue about her health problems, and they don't want to hear about them. She is diabetic with nerve pain in her feet. From our conversation, I can tell she spends much time on the Internet. This made me think again about technology and my love/hate relationship with it. I often feel it takes too much of my time but for this woman, the Internet is her outlet to the world, a place where she continues to learn new things, her way to converse with her family and others. 

For over an hour we two strangers ate and conversed. The time passed quickly, and we were both happy that we had come in alone. As my dinner companion said, "I love to talk with strangers. I learn so much that way."

She reminded me of my mother who talked with anyone she met--in line at the store, in the elevator, standing at the meat counter in the super market and always in waiting rooms. I have that gene, too.

If I smile at someone and they smile back, I know they are open to conversation. 

Since time is the most precious commodity I own, I hate to waste it. Having dinner conversation with the lady at the steak house was not wasted. She showed me her Fitbit and told me how she used it as a reminder of when to take medication, when to exercise, and many other things that helped her live better. I had thought a Fitbit was just for athletic people to keep up with how many calories they burned, etc. But now I might look into seeing how this new technology could be helpful in my life.  

My husband, Barry Beall, liked people and talked to everyone. I wrote this poem before I became one who also talks to strangers.

Never a Stranger

                    --- for Barry

I watch you and I'm jealous.  You talk

to people on the elevator, at the airport

waiting, at the grocery store in front

of the cucumbers.

I stand stiff, my eyes averted from

the woman's eyes, in line at the post office

window. What should I say?

I don't want to be intrusive.

Never lost for words, you smile

and burst right in. The stranger's

eyes light up and suddenly she has

become a friend.

--- by Glenda Council Beall