On my 13th birthday, my parents gave me a watch with an inscription on the back that read: Time is precious, use it wisely. Love, Mom and Dad.
I remember thinking, at the time, that my parents were probably giving me important advice, but it meant very little to an emerging teenager who didn’t like wearing watches. I wore it to school for a few weeks, then tucked it away in the drawer of my bedside table.
Lately, as I go about my daily routines, I find myself thinking about that watch’s inscription. Just the other day, those words came to mind as I was dusting the many picture frames hung around our house, making sure I wiped the unseen top edge of each one, just for good measure.
My mother would have been beaming; I was confused. What the heck am I doing? Is this a reasonable way to spend half an hour of the time I have left on this planet? Mom, is this what you meant by using time wisely?
The last question, of course, is the most important. For, although she has been gone for almost 10 years, my mother still often accompanies (perhaps supervises is the more apt word choice) me in my daily chores and decision-making. Mom most likely would have been diagnosed as OCD. She assigned one of my sisters the monthly chore of dusting all the light bulbs in our (rather large) house. She insisted that forks, spoons, and knives be placed on their sides, nestled one against the other, all pointing to the right. (In later years, when we kids visited, one of us would reverse the direction of one piece of silverware, just to drive her crazy.)
Isn’t it strange — the less time we have to look forward to, the more time we spend on stupid tasks that really aren’t worth the time of day! At least that seems to be true for me: vacuuming under sofa cushions, washing kitchen cabinet doors, folding T-shirts, alphabetizing books by authors’ last names — the list goes on and on.
I find my thoughts rambling, but I do have a (rather obvious and only somewhat-interesting) point to make: many of us change as we grow older. In my case, a 20-something-year old slob who becomes a married, 30-something dad with children’s belongings strewn about the house gradually (but suddenly!) finds himself, at age 71, rubbing Spray & Wash onto tiny shirt stains and becoming annoyed with feathers protruding from couch pillows. Why? Why? Who could possibly care about such first-world “problems?” What has become of me? Who on Earth am I?
The answer isn’t hard to find: I am my mother. And my father, too, I should add. Dad was a man of many interests and hobbies who kept an incredibly well-organized workshop in our basement. But he didn’t hold a candle to his wife when it came to meticulous household maintenance. She was a loving, happy, compassionate woman who ran a tight ship. And, as it turns out, I was a stowaway aboard her craft, absorbing, without being given a choice, both her values and her idiosyncrasies.
That’s the way it goes, isn’t it? We carry the baggage of past generations, the jewels and the junk, the baby and the bath water, with us in our daily lives, and then hand off the luggage to those who follow.
I am among the fortunate. My baggage has been light and filled with treasures.
I just wish, mom, you’d gone a little easier with the dusting.
Gene Stamell is a retired educator. He can be reached at gstamell@gmail.com