My Mom is home now from the hospital. Her surgery went well and now she can focus on regaining her strength. I'll be going to spend a week with her in Arkansas in early May. Fortunately, I have three sisters and amongst us we are able to spend time with her when she needs us.
I spoke with her on the day before she left the hospital. When the phone rang, I was in the middle of a little project. Something I had wanted to do for a couple of years.
Sometimes it takes me a while to amass the activation energy needed to tackle a project. Even a simple one.
I finally gathered all the ingredients to try my hand at making my own laundry detergent.
Her immediate reaction?
Her second reaction, however, was the memory of watching her grandfather making laundry detergent when she was a little girl. She remembers watching him shave the Ivory soap into little pieces and melt it in boiling water on the stove.
My recipe really wasn't too different from his.
We didn't have my great grandfather's birth date handy, but he died in 1951, so I never knew him. My own grandmother, his daughter, was born in 1898, so I have rough idea that he would have been born at least 25-30 years before that.
Sometimes it takes me a while to amass the activation energy needed to tackle a project. Even a simple one.
I finally gathered all the ingredients to try my hand at making my own laundry detergent.
It's not that's it's such a difficult process. In fact, the recipe is extremely easy.
Anyway, I mentioned to my mom that I was making laundry detergent when she called.
Her immediate reaction?
"You need to get a job."
Ha!
Her second reaction, however, was the memory of watching her grandfather making laundry detergent when she was a little girl. She remembers watching him shave the Ivory soap into little pieces and melt it in boiling water on the stove.
My recipe really wasn't too different from his.
My mom will be 80 in July.
She was a little girl during the Great Depression, when she spent a lot of time with her grandparents.
They made their own cottage cheese, saved the individual wrappers from peaches to use in the outhouse, and even when they had electricity installed in their house, read by candle light in the evenings.
We didn't have my great grandfather's birth date handy, but he died in 1951, so I never knew him. My own grandmother, his daughter, was born in 1898, so I have rough idea that he would have been born at least 25-30 years before that.
Wow.
Here I am, 60-some-years later, doing the same task my great-grandfather did.
Hearing my mom's recollection gave me a connection to the past and to a man I never knew. It brought me back to a simpler, though certainly not easier, time, when my mom was a little girl.
Here I am, 60-some-years later, doing the same task my great-grandfather did.
Why?
I find a level of contentment knowing I can do and make things for myself and my family.
I'm also working on developing my frugal side.
I'm also working on developing my frugal side.
Hearing my mom's recollection gave me a connection to the past and to a man I never knew. It brought me back to a simpler, though certainly not easier, time, when my mom was a little girl.
I treasure these connections to the past. There is so much I will never know about my grandparents, great-grandparents...
But in this one simple activity, I feel a connection with them, with a different time.
And it feels good.
1 comment:
This post rang so true. It is amazing how things move in a cycle, how our lives still have links to the past even though we imagine ourselves in a totally different world here in 2009. I remember drying apples by stringing them in my home and having my mother note that's how her parents/family did it so many years ago (that, and sun-drying fruit puree on trays in the sun on the rooftops). Its a good feeling.
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