04/24/2022
Lynn Murphy Mark
All grown up
The last few days with my daughter, Jackie, were absolute mother’s bliss. She is just beginning the voyage into her forties, while I remember times when she only came up to my waist, or when I carried her baby self with such love and tenderness that I could barely contain myself.
She is tall and slender. Taller than me and definitely more svelte, which she has been for years. She is married to a brilliant man from Nigeria. She is a mother herself, raising two energetic little boys. She works full time as an Assistant Principle in an elementary school in Queens, New York City. Education is her passion and her calling. She has a keen sense of humor, Thank You God.
So we spent three full days together, talking and laughing and enjoying good food. She got time to be on the beach and to take walks and to actually read more than one page of her book at a time, and I had time to talk to friends on the phone and read my latest Tana French book. It was a perfect break for both of us.
We did catch up with the details of our lives. Things that you don’t talk about during a quick phone call, emerged and were fully discussed. We shared wisdom with each other. As a mother it is an interesting phenomenon to get solid advice from my first born. She is a very wise, funny, and practical woman. It’s like we were old friends, which I guess we really are…
Momoh, her husband, was in charge of the boys, and they talked a couple of times each day. Jackie did not ask too many questions – we decided early on that we were on a “need to know” basis only. Probably the less we knew about a dad and a three year old and a 4 ½ year old and their antics, the better. Although there was a call during which when the boys’ last had a bath was in question… Momoh bragged that he was functioning as both Mother and Father, whereupon Jackie said that Mothers make sure that kids are bathed!
We talked about everything she had done to prepare for her absence. The details of most of it would have been lost to Momoh because she does them so naturally and quietly as part of the household routine. Laundry done. Food for school and snacks and dinners in the fridge. Enough soap for the elusive baths in the bathroom cabinet. Etc., etc., etc..
I don’t know when we might have such an occasion again. Which makes the three days spent in each other’s company absolutely PRICELESS!!