Time Flies

Now We Are Six (1927)
A. A. Milne

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six,
I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

Dorothy was Dolores' Maid of Honor. According to my mother, Dolores, they only began to get close after my parents were married and my Aunt Dorothy had her first child. Dorothy and Dolores are the last two of nine children. Dolores is the youngest. My mother's memories revolve mostly around arguments between her sisters.
One of my deep regrets is that I don't feel, to this day, like I really, truly know who my mother is deep down. She was a homemaker for the first ten years of my life and I never really got the sense that anything about our home truly reflected her tastes. It was a very nice home and my mother loved to rearrange furniture but there was no one thing that gave me a clearer vision as to who she was or what mattered to her most. It felt like she was defaulting, somehow. When I was in grade school I would stroll around the school gym at our annual Christmas Fair and nothing at all would shout out to me "BUY THIS FOR MOM!! SHE LOVES THIS KIND OF STUFF!". I do remember once, in first grade, spending a few dollars on a fake flower arrangement in a white vase and bringing it home to her believing that it would make her so happy she would cry. She didn't cry. I don't think she even smiled. I would bet money that she thanked me and lit another cigarette.
I remember the scene in the film The Bridges of Madison County when Francesca's children follow their dead mother's written instructions leading them to a locked trunk at the foot of her bed. (Her beautiful, simple bed with the chenille spread) - and unearth, what essentially turns out to be, the map to understanding their mother's truest self in the form of notebooks and clothing and various other treasures. In a note to her children Francesca writes - "We all want to be known for who we really are during this brief stay..."
Yes!! Yes, mom!!! WHO ARE YOU??? What's in YOUR locked trunk???
This is what I DO know -
My mother is the most and the least judgmental person I know. She's pro-choice, a registered Democrat and she likes potato chips a lot. I think she has a stubborn, rebellious streak that isn't necessarily cute and I think it is a leftover from childhood. She's uncomfortable with love scenes in films and always has been. She's devout in terms of her faith but she has never shoved it down mine or anyone else's throat. She likes candy and ice cream a lot. She swears but has never dropped the F-bomb - at least not in front of me. She likes to have a leader - someone to answer to - like my father when they were together and then a bossy female friend or two and, especially, her sister Dorothy after my parent's divorce.
As for what I don't know about her that I'd like to know, well, it's not that simple. The things I don't know about her are, in my opinion, the very things she doesn't really know about herself. I take comfort in the few things she does regularly because I can count on her to do them. Things like making coffee first thing in the morning. I'm aware that many people make coffee every morning but it's something that helps me to define her in my mind's eye.
My mom has never spent real money on herself. I can remember the top of her dresser in the 1970's being filled with bottles of drug store perfume with names like "If you like Opium, you'll love "Topium" - some vile knock-off of an already cloyingly bad scent.
My sister, my mother and I went to visit a wealthy relative recently and as we were walking down the adobe tiled circular driveway my sister whispered in my ear, "Look at her shoes." My mother, who was a good twenty feet ahead of us snarked, "There's nothing wrong with my shoes. I got them at PAYLESS!" Nothing wrong with her ears, either.
The thing is this, at this point in my life I can really appreciate the passing of time and fully embrace that I am just an older, wiser and more experienced version of my 11 year old self. To paraphrase the writer Anne Lamott - she said when we reach a certain age,(in my mother's case, 82), we aren't merely the "old woman". We are every age we've ever been up to that point. It's so very true. I thought that very thing at the Assisted Living place when we went to visit Aunt Dot recently. Dorothy and Dolores are "old" but not a whole hell of a lot has really, truly changed.