Things My Mother Said to Me

Crystal Barrow Waller, ca. 1991

Carry the scissors with the points down.

Don’t run with a lollipop in your mouth.

You’re grouchy when you don’t get your nap.

Psst! Pull down your bathing suit.

I’m cold, go put on a sweater.

If you chase a cow, she’ll make buttermilk.

Go get a bobby pin and get that hair out of your eyes, it’s driving me crazy.

You didn’t really tell your teacher I said that about the cow, did you?

When you wear your hair down, it makes my neck hot.

Christmas won’t be nearly as much fun if you find where your presents are hidden.

If somebody asks you to play the piano, smile and get up and play the piano.

You don’t have to eat everything on your plate.

When you’re eating at someone else’s house, don’t  ever say, “I don’t like that.” If I find out you did, something bad will happen.

Don’t put black pepper in the mashed potatoes, it looks like fly specks.

A KitchenAid mixer will mix putty.

Stand up straight.

Smile.

If you bring another stray dog into this house…oh, isn’t he cute.

You’re pale, wear makeup.

Wear black.

Wear red.

That looks nice on you. Buy it.

Quit worrying about your cleavage. If you’ve got it, enjoy it.

Stop saying you’re fat. You’re not.

Don’t skimp on shoes. Selby’s have a good steel shank.

Never complain about paying income tax. Some people don’t earn enough to pay it.

It’s your body and what you do with it is nobody else’s business.

It’s a shame Aunt Lu was so narrow-minded about her daughter’s being a lesbian.

Go to college and live in a dorm.

Don’t get married right out of high school.

If you want to get married, don’t let anybody talk you out of it.

 Learn to be a wife before you become a mother.

I love you.

Billie and Crystal Barrow Waller, October 1942

A 100-Year-Old Person: The View from Kindergarten

What does a 100-year-old person look like?

For their 100-day anniversary, kindergarteners were asked to come to school dressed as 100-year-olds.

This Aged P. is a member of my family, but, as is obvious from our respective photographs, I am considerably younger than she.

Crystal

Crystal Barrow, ~ 1919
Crystal Barrow, ~ 1919

For my mother
born in Martindale, Texas, 1917
In all her seventy-five years, she never grew old.

*

The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.

The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.

Oh, if instead she’d left to me
The thing she took into the grave!-
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay