Calls back the lovely April of her prime.
~William Shakespeare
In some
cultures there is a reincarnation belief – elderly family members who have
passed away come back as children in the same family and the cycle continues.
In theory, a mother with a daughter may be parenting the reincarnated essence
of her mother – the child and the grandmother have the same spirit. This is
simplistic, of course. There is a complicated belief system involved but what I
wonder is, can the child be born while the grandmother is still alive and still
be inhabited by the spirit of the grandmother? And the bigger question – how
does the mother, caught between two such powerful female forces, fit in? Talk
about being caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. The solution, I
suppose is to be still and listen and learn.
One of my
daughters resembles her father’s mother and the other, alas, is my mother
reborn. Strange that I should say “alas” when all my friends thought my mom was
THE BEST. They enjoyed her acceptance and hospitality but Mom and I circled and
locked horns over almost everything until I moved away from home. It took time
and distance to transform us into good friends.
When
daughter number two, the one just like my mother, was growing up, my spider
senses told me to watch out. She had inherited what we called the “Grandma”
gene. This child of mine was someone to be reckoned with. Her fierce
determination and persistence, her stubborn pride, her ability to meet
challenges head on, and her open honesty were, at first, points of contention,
especially with her grandmother. “Dear, you can have a cookie if you help me in
the kitchen.” “It’s okay Grandma, I don’t want a cookie.”
I watched in wonder
as the child and the grandmother took turns, shooting and scoring. One or the
other was always saying the wrong thing, looking at each other sideways,
pushing away rather than drawing together. They circled each other like the
opposite poles of a magnet not knowing that if they each just turned a little
bit, they would be drawn together by a mighty force. I wasn’t the referee in
this action but a fence-walker, often losing my balance and falling soundly
into one camp or the other.
These women,
my mother and my daughter, never knew each other as adults, but as my daughter
grew older, I noticed something else. I learned that these powerful
characteristics – the ones that made me crazy – were good and honourable and
incredibly handy when it came to dealing with the curves life throws at us.
Tenacity, determination, persistence and her constant open honesty have serve her well. Through my daughter, I learned to understand my mother better.
