Mother-Daughter Dresses

Since Mother’s Day is tomorrow, I thought it would be fitting to dedicate this post to my mom, Janice.   Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

Since Junebug was built in 1961, I tried to find a picture of my mom from 1961.  The best I could do was a picture of her in 1962, seen below.  She was 6 years old.  I’ll bet she would have loved to go camping in Junebug back then!  In fact, she is interested in going camping in Junebug even today because she’s just that cool. 🙂

 Fast forward a few years…  The picture below has always been one of my favorites.  This was taken in 1988, I was 10 years old and Mom was 31.  Hard to believe I’m already older than she was then and still no kids. haha  I have Baxter, he’s about as close to a kid as I’ve got for the moment.  

Circa 1991 – Mom had decided to go blonde.  She was about the same age here as I am now!  And I am currently dying my hair brown (for the most part).  Funny how we were both wanting the opposite hair color to what we were born with.  I guess the grass is always greener…

Three generations of women in 2010: me, my grandma on her 90th birthday, and my Mom.  Two awesome ladies!  I literally wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them.  Kind of strange when you really think about it.  haha

Me and Mom in Canada in summer 2010.  I had just moved there and Mom came up to visit.  It was my first week of work in my new assignment,and it was so nice having her there!  She cooked dinner for me every night when I got home.  I remember thinking I could really get used to this!  In the meantime, my stepdad was really missing her so I guess I couldn’t keep her there forever.   And here we are about a year ago at my aunt and uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary.  We were having a great time together in the photo booth!

I feel so grateful to have a mother who is also my best friend.  She is loving, kind, understanding, and supportive.  She isn’t afraid to call me out when she thinks I’m making a mistake, even if I choose not to listen.  Over the years, she has been such a good role model and a trusting confidant.  I can’t imagine my life without her to be honest.

I wanted to share a poem my mom wrote while in graduate school at Texas Tech because I think she is an excellent poet, and I’ve always loved this poem.  Hopefully she won’t mind if I repost it here for others to enjoy.

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Mother-Daughter Dresses

I refused to buy them when she was a toddler,

the lace-trimmed polished cottons and matching

taffetas.  But now we slip in and out

of one another’s closets, taking all

–

we can.  She finds me listening to her music

but forgives me, for it’s Nirvana, and this night

Kurt Cobain is dead.  She settles beside me

and we whisper an eulogy to “Heart-shaped Box”

and “Come As You Are.”  I describe how her dad and I

–

did this, turned the lights down, played music

making words more than flesh, the night we heard

about John Lennon.  We sign around the real worry—

the iconography shading her remaining days—

–

her father, last spring, at church front

in his shimmering blue coffin, heavy

American flag from a Viet Nam tour draped

across his best brown tweed.  The flag, folded

into a perfect trinity, filled her hands,

–

but still she clutched the rough lapels

of her daddy’s jacket.  Tonight, she says I’m sloshing

gin and tonic on the carpet, so I got to bed,

leaving her to the silent six hundred seconds

–

ending Cobain’s “Nevermind,” straining for secret tracks.

I’m afraid she knows she won’t find them.  Friends bear

Mascara smudges like ashes, as if they’ve lost a lover or a god,

But for her it’s only another prop pulled, just as mine fall away

When I open the liquor cabinet and find

–

she’s watered the vodka one more time.  At sixteen,

this daughter looks nothing like me, yet every day she edges

closer to the fit.  Dresses

slip over our shoulders, come floating down.

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