It has been weighing on my thoughts a lot lately--the fact that my children don't know everything I know. There are only a few precious hours left (once you take away school and sleeping) until they no longer WANT to know everything I know and certainly not enough hours for me to teach it all to them. Even if they could understand everything.
My mom, amazing as she is, never taught me to sew. She is an awesome seamstress and I never really wanted or needed to know as long as she was around. I had to teach myself years later (with some disastrous first attempt results that, if my mom hadn't been able to fix it for me, probably would have killed any ambition to learn to do it). And that's just one thing my mom knew how to do. I was fortunate enough to learn to make jam and do some minor processing jobs beside her, but my sisters never had that opportunity. (Mostly because Mom's kitchen is TINY.) I even had one of them recently ask me how to chop an onion.
Not only that, but there are a lot of things I don't even know how to do that I ought to know. I've never changed a tire before, though I know the theory. I've never changed my own oil. I don't know how to build a computer or repair a hole in the wall or make my own oil paint. Okay, the last one is a little silly, but would still be fun to do. Maybe it would be fun to document my first tries at all the things I will yet learn--just to prove that I'm not perfect. (Yet.)
Hopefully my girlies will also stand beside me in yellow rubber gloves and make peach jam. And, even more hopefully, Grammie will teach them the art of quilting because their momma still can't sew a straight line most of the time. But, if the worst were to happen (like they don't want to know until they live half a world away), I want them to have an unfailingly reliable resource that also makes them feel like their mom is right beside them.
Because I always am. Even if only in spirit.
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