To the Woman Beside Us in the Restaurant This Evening....

First of all, it really was very nice of you to take your mother out to the restaurant for supper. She looked like she really enjoyed herself. She was dressed very nicely, decked out in a Christmas sweater, wearing Christmas jewellery. Your dear mother must be in her nineties.

For goodness sake, when you decided it was time to pay the bill and leave the restaurant, you could have been more patient with her. It was obvious that she maybe didn't hear as well as you, and that she moved a little slower and more carefully (the walker was a dead giveaway). I can understand that it must be painful to watch someone you love grow older and slower - but I think you could have been more patient and kind.

Then again, what do I know - I don't know your life story and my own mother is still quite young and still does everything for herself. But if ever she needs a hand buttoning her coat, and doing up the zippers on her snowboots, or finding her gloves in her purse, I will certainly do everything in my power to help her. I'm sure it's not easy.

I remember sitting on the stairs while Mom told me to concentrate on pushing my foot into my shoe or boot. I remember Mom and Grandma both coaching me on how to make sure my fingers were all in the right spots in my gloves. I remember being told that I missed a button and should try it again. I remember being told all of these things without reproach, and without being belittled. I can't help but think that makes a HUGE difference. It's all in how you say it.

There really wasn't much sense in shuffling her out the door faster than she could comfortably walk. It seemed to me she was totally willing to be responsible for herself. She hung her purse on her walker with great care, buttoned her coat up to her neck, and looked down to be sure her boots were on securely before she moved an inch. It was obvious to her (and I) that you were frustrated with this. At that point you were already outside the door. You did reach back to hold it open for her. It's too bad you cannot remember being a little girl and having your mother hold the door open for you while you walked out under her arm, or holding her hand. Perhaps even walking at a pace you were comfortable with and capable of.

I'm not religious, but "Honour thy father and mother" rang through my head while I watched you scoff and sneer and roll your eyes. I think that the fifth commandment still applies, even when 'thy mother' is elderly and slow. Seriously.

And that's all I have to say about that. And I'm posting this here in hopes that in 25 years when my parents ARE elderly, that I too will remember this. It's so important.

What's that smell?

Why is it that people have such a hard time remembering certain things, and others are engraved in our memories? I forget to take my lunch out of the fridge in the morning, I misplace my keys, etc..and yet I remember all the words to The Twelve Days of Christmas?

I know that some children remember things better when they learn them as a song. I still remember "The Provinces of Canada are fun to remember.....", and from my grade 10 German class "Ich bin Auslander und spreche nicht gut Deutsch." I even remember my uncle George crooning to me "When Papa papered the parlour, you couldn't see Papa for paste!"

The silverware drawer of my china cabinet smells like Grandma. Well, not like Grandma exactly, but like Kraft chewy candies that she used to stock there when I was about 4 years old. There haven't been any candies in the drawer SINCE I was about four, but every time I open it I stop and inhale deeply, and the scent is still there.

And my Aunt Gwen's house smells like, well, like Gwen's house. A mixture of scented candles, bleach, and Fuller Brush closet deodorizers. Anything that comes from Gwen's carries the scent, and it just smells like home to me.

A friend of mine told me a story today about a time when she was very young and her mother went away for a conference for about a week. She told me she would open her mother's closet and smell her clothes, just because they reminded her of her mother. I can totally relate. I did the same thing when I was about 15 and Gwen spent a night in the hospital because of an allergic reaction - opened up the closet door in her bedroom and just breathed it all in.

I did read somewhere that our sense of smell is the tightest link to our memory, and I believe it one hundred percent. If I smell something with a memory, I'm taken back, instantly, to wherever I was and whoever I was with at the time I first smelled it.

Smell is a funny thing.

Thanks Gwen....

For teaching me there are many opinions. I don't have to accept everyone else's. I just have to accept that they have as much right to theirs as I have to mine.

Lots of people should learn from that.