Storytelling Sunday: Mothering

I grew up with six brothers and sisters in a close-knit family. We were raised in a sun-drenched neighborhood, built on land which used to sprout orange groves, but, which by the early 1960's, instead nurtured families whose fathers worked in aerospace and other Southern California "baby boom" industries. Unlike most of the other families in the neighborhood, my mother had to work to help support the family.  She worked as a hospital nurse for most of my childhood, working either the 7am-3pm, 3pm-11pm or 11pm-7am shifts.  Later, she would teach women to become licensed vocational nurses and work with children as a school Head Start Nurse, but those are stories from another time. These were the early days.
Nurses in those days had a certain look, very far removed from the  nurses we see today.  I remember watching my mother get dressed for work - putting on her starched white dress, adjusting her white stockings, lacing up her neatly polished white shoes and finally pinning her cap onto her gorgeous raven black hair.  She was busy, and I missed her a a lot. Only now as a working mother struggling to raise two children ("I occasionally think . . .  six!") can I begin to understand her life.  Which makes me appreciate the little moments all that much more.
I remember one very hot day.  I must have been in second grade.  My stomach hurt, and I was miserable.  I went to the office, and they called my mom at work to come get me.  She took me home, laid me in her bed (their room was the only one with air conditioning), gave me Popsicles and sat with me for hours.  I remember the crisp, coolness of the sheets and the way her knees looked, covered in white stockings, peeking out from under her skirt as she sat their next to me.  I remember feeling happy and cared for and loved.
What makes a good mother?  Is it the big things like raising six children to become happy, healthy adults?  Or the hard work of bringing home a pay check to support them? I think it's all of that, but I also think it's in the small moments of bandaging a knee or watching a school play.  It's those small moments of love and care. . . those small moments of mothering.
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This post is offered as part of Storytelling Sunday, hosted by Sian at her blog, From High in the Sky .  For more entries, click on this link.