OUR DAUGHTERS

Fran and I met only months ago at our Senior Home here on Long Island, and found that we with
our daughters Debbie and Susan shared interesting similarities... and that is how they each had become new roles to us...our new Mothers!  They were  both so precious to us,  And we needed them... hopefully not for too much of their time...or ours. Last Sunday both came to visit... Debbie  came in with cookies for me, knowing how much I love those sweet snacks... (which I've found taste as good whether they are sugar free or made with regular sugar.) 
After we had them with our cups of tea Debbie said, "Okay Ma, listen...you pants are too short.
Don't wear them any more."
I was, as usual, on the defensive, "No they're not. They cover my legs don't they?"
Debbie shook her head, " Yes, but not your ankles"...looks awful. They must have shrunk in the
wash. Take the hem down."
"Debbie, they have no hem, and no material left to make one."
"Then give them away...throw them away. Get rid of them!"
My friend Fran's daughter Susan had come to visit her also. I heard them at their table, "Ma, they
look all wrong...and you could trip on them...they're much too long. You must have shrunk!"
At that word Fran turned red, "Shrunk! Well, maybe I did...a little. She waved her hand around
the room, "We all do", and you will too someday... She thought it but didn't say it. 
"Ma," continued Susan, "hem them up. Or give them away...throw them away...just get rid of them."
'GET RID OF THEM' was the mantra we had to live with, Fran and I, and all we Ma's when we
moved from our houses and condos to these Senior Homes. We brought with us memorabela that go back years, decades. "Do you really need the poems that you wrote in the 5th grade? The drawings you did in the 7th?" Our daughters wanted to know. I did admit to being a 'pack rat'.
I didn't want to part with my teenage birthday cards, my diaries from my High School...
"It's just clutter Ma" Debbie told me. "You don't need it all."
The key word was, is 'need'. True they are not Insurance Contracts, real estate deeds, important financial statements etc. As we tried to explain to our daughters (now our mother's) they
made a 'deal' with us; "Read each page, then throw one page away... save one page... throw
one...save one...and so forth. Can I do it? I went to my room and opened some boxes stuffed
with my old notebooks and loose pages, some not as 'old as the hills' but older. How did I become a
'pack rat'? Did it come from a parent? No, they were both neat and orderly. Did it go back to  my
Grandma, who  had piles of stuff that she brought with her from the 'old country' and her daughter, (my Mother) calling her on it. But Grandma so content to be here with her husband and growing
family, probably didn't even hear her.
I, on the other hand, did hear my daughter when she corrected me for other things, such as
the way I ate. "You eat so fast!" she said. "Why?"
"Oh, I don't know...just a habit..." I shrugged.
But many in our group didn't buy that. They knew that I had 3 siblings so we were 6 at my
family meals so their psychological explanation for why I ate so fast was that I was afraid that
there would not be enough food for all of us...more specifically for me.
They all had fun over it, but I didn't care. I was more interested in my friend Fran's eating
too slowly. As we always had to wait for Fran, our attention was focused on her while we waited
for the card game or whatever we had planned together. For some this was analyzed as Fran being
an 'attention getter', not a very flattering picture. While the image of poor me going hungry was
more sympathetic.
The switching of roles from daughter to mother is so much a part of our aging we all take it for
granted that it will happen.

I recently heard of an ultimate daughter's love for her mother who at the age of  89  lay dying
while her daughter sat by her bedside talking softly to her. She then got into her bed and held
her mother in comfort in the beautiful final act of love for her.
                                                        THE END