My Mother, Myself

Yesterday I scrubbed the bathroom tiles. I never thought I’d grow up to be the Queen of Chlorox. Or that I’d insist on manually drying the dinner plates. But I am. And I do. Forty plus years later, I can categorically say that I have morphed into my mother.

The physical signs are secondary. The hips, knees that tend to knock against each other, forever size 32B cups—I knew I was destined to have these in my early teens, when I realized I was no Regal Baby material. And now, when my elder cousins point out that I look like Ma when she was younger, I take it as the compliment that they intend it to be. I am my mother’s daughter, after all.

I knew for sure that I had a bit of my mother in me when I had what my mom probably considers her sweet revenge: my daughter. The obsession with super sanitized tiles began, as did the compulsion to keep files of almost anything. I have even taken to using that tone when the daughter becomes too much of a handful.

Of course, I have yet to settle into Ma’s choice of wardrobe, or obsess over my handwriting. I have yet to volunteer for church duty, or to volunteer for anything, for that matter. But then again, I have all the time in the world to be completely “mommy-fied.”

A happy day to all mothers of whatever shapes and forms.