By Winnie Bolton
Like most adults, the older one becomes the more one looks back.
Presently, it’s not so much where I’m heading but where I’ve been.
When I reflect, I tend to see only the good stuff – the events that made me who and what I am today.
Just the other night, I laid awake thinking about my mom.
It’s only in growing older that my hindsight is really clear about my mom, Marie, not as her being my mother but her as an individual having lived in this world as a unique human being.
My mother had an unselfish presence, thinking of others first as she connected with people so well on an emotional and social level.
Astoria, Long Island and New York neighborhoods where I grew up harbored a variety of ethnicities.
Across the street from us lived two seamstresses born in Germany who worked in New York City’s garment district and next door lived a Greek family of 10 who were a noisy but delightful bunch. Up the street was Czechoslovakian family of hairdressers and down the street a Swedish family and further down the street an Italian butcher and on the corner a Jewish doctor.
My own family was from Ireland – my father was a police lieutenant in the Harlem district of New York City.
Hearing my neighbors’ various accents was an every day part of my growing up years.
Often our neighbors would bring their laments to my mother’s kitchen window knowing she would take the time to listen.
With her lilting Irish brogue, she instinctively identified with the struggle of adjusting to a new land so different from the old country.
Many an evening, my father’s arrival home from work would find Rose or Eva sitting on a kitchen chair while my mother was fixing dinner quietly listening to their stories or concerns.
I can presently – at my mature age – understand her caring but not then as a teenager.
Attempting to resolve situations was not my mother’s forte but by listening she strengthened their confidence and honored their presence, giving them a sense of joy that is precarious when its deepest meaning can be in the hands of wounded feelings.
Maybe my mom was exhibiting in her soft, gentle way the gift of compassion.
Isn’t it incomprehensible how thoughts like these, of so long ago, arrive when you’re ready to fall asleep?
Perhaps, I was being blessed with appreciating my mom as a whole human being that through being graced with a listening heart she was able to recognize the depth of God in others.
Every person no matter what age, color, creed or nationality goes through dark times in their life’s journey but to have a golden glow in their wake is the valued, priceless gift that a listening friend can bring.
