Lessons from Mom

My 10 year old little sister's chin was quivering when she told my mom she had lost the ring my mom had just given her. The ring was a present from my mom's father when she was 10 or so, something he had brought back for her from Yugoslavia. I was about to say something about her needing to be more careful with her things. Before I could, my beautiful mama took my sis in her arms and said, "We need to be conscienscous about our things, but when things happen to things, we need to let it go." I learned an important lesson that day.

To keep perspective. "It's only a thing" is what my mom would always say when I or my brother or sisters broke something by accident. "I can get another one and you are not replaceable." Her attitude did two things: 1. Made me feel better after I just broke something special (like an irreplacable 200-year-old American Indian bowl). 2. Made me want to go out immediately and replace it or do something special for her.
What would have been the result had she just yelled at me for an accident?

As a kid, my grandmother taught me how to turn turf, milk a cow, and put a hen to sleep. She taught me to work hard -- that the less time we spent thinking about how much turf we needed to turn, the sooner we'd be finished. She taught me to deal with personalities -- to avoid the kicking cows and to sing to the antsy. She taught me responsibility -- to walk slow and strong with buckets of milk. She taught me to appreciate the simple pleasures -- to always leave time for party tricks. I'm still a student of my nana, and she still has so much to teach me.