Lessons My Mother Taught Me by Francilia Greaves

Eric Jarvis mailed me a book he thought I would like:  Lessons My Mother Taught Me: A Celebration of Caribbean Motherhood, edited by Francilia Greaves.  The book is a collection of the stories of 36 people who tell what kinds of lessons their mother taught them.  As I was out walking yesterday morning, I was wondering what Eric would write if he had been the 37th person asked for a story and had to tell about his own mom.   The project is to tell in 10 paragraphs what one's mother has taught him or her.  Brevity is difficult under these circumstances.  And brevity would be especially difficult, given the quality of Eric's mother's parenting.  Then I wondered what I would write if I had been asked to write on that subject.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day.  By this morning,  I had forgotten about Eric and was wondering what I could write about Wyora, as I walked at 7 am along Centennial Park, idling half-watching the city workers taking the Kinsmen Christmas decorations from the golf course as I passed under fourteenth street.  “She was never that late taking down the holiday splendour,” I thought.

It took me the whole walk to come up with some simple ideas: she taught me how to share food; she taught me that everyone loves a friend; she taught me to love children.  I will see if I can flesh those a few of those ideas about Wyora out for tomorrow and put them on the blog.  I have had it on my mind for a few hours now and even I am going to be surprised at what I will write ... given how difficult it seems to me, to articulate a small essay like that.

Arta