Not a single day goes by that I don’t think of my beautiful mother.  She lives in Las Vegas with my father, and two daughters, and other close members of our family. My husband and I moved to Idaho a year ago, and so I do not see her on a regular basis as I did before.

It seems that most of my mother’s life was spent doing things for others.  When my mom was about 3 years old, her mother died,  leaving her, her sister,  and 3 brothers to be raised by my grandfather who never remarried. As she grew older, my mother was the one who took on more and more of the family responsibilities.

Mom has always been a stay at home mother.  I can’t remember one time coming home from school without finding her there.  I’m sure the fact that she was raising five girls who always came first, and the fact that she never learned to drive attributed to her “home bodiness”.  She has always been and is still so proud of us girls. She raised us to be as proud of ourselves as she is of us. 

My mother cleaned and cooked and washed and ironed it seemed incessantly.  Her hands were always busy.  When we all finally “left the nest”, she took up crocheting afghans and baby blankets, booties and hats for family and friends.  She would no sooner complete one piece before she would be working on another.  

When my mother was in her fifties, she developed an interest in porcelain dolls.  She would purchase the green ware and work diligently on sanding their little faces, hands, feet, and legs to perfection.  Then she would dab oh so little paint here and there to brighten the features on the dolls’ faces, elbows and knees, tiny fingers and toenails.  Their lips and eyes and hair had to be exactly as she imagined they should be, and she would work until they were. 

After the dolls were completed, my mother would spend hours creating little patterns for the dolls’ clothes.  She would design the clothes, find the perfect lace and tiny shoes and socks, and stitch the tiny dresses and slips and hats together by hand and on her sewing machine. The fine porcelain dolls, when finally completed, were always meticulously dressed.

On one Christmas, when my sisters and I were young married mothers ourselves, mom arranged a little gathering and presented us 5 girls with the special dolls she had made.  The dolls were given along with a different and loving note to each of us.  Needless to say, we were all very touched.  The dolls remain our treasures.

Now that my mother is 87, her eyes are dimmed with age and she can no longer hear very well.  Her hands are idle because she cannot see the needle and the crochet stitches nor can she use her arthritic fingers to sand fine porcelain or to make intricate tiny wardrobes.

Faces on TV appear to her as outlines and she cannot read.  Sometimes, when I sit with her, I notice a smile on her face.  That pleases me because it makes me think that she might understand something from the TV program we are watching together.  But when I ask her what is going on, she just looks at me with that beautiful smile of hers  – she has such an engaging smile – and shrugs her shoulders. 

In her best moments, my mother is with us, but mostly she lives in a world of her own cared for by her five daughters and her grandchildren. Out of habit, she frets about the flowers in her garden that she cannot see, and the hummingbirds that come to visit while she is sitting on the patio are nothing more than fleeting shadows.  Her hands are idle now not by choice, or lack of care, or even will.  They are still because she is tired and no longer capable of doing the things that meant so much to her – she can no longer care for her children, or see to her home, or  create the “masterpieces” that  she once created.