Thinking about mothers

I just finished reading Ruth Reichl's For You, Mom, Finally. I'm a big fan of Reichl's writing, but in earlier books she's always referred to her mom as eccentric, bizarre, hard to understand, sometimes an embarrassment--like the time she gave food poisoning to a crowd of guests at an engagement party for Reichl's older brother, because she prepared all the food way ahead or the time she was asked to step down as a Brownie leader after a particularly disastrous snack she served. You sensed, as you read, that Reichl was a tad embarrassed by her mom.
But then, after much hesitation and procrastination, she read through a stack of letters, notes, clippings, whatever that her mother had kept over the years, and she began to understand the woman behind the bizarre behavior. She was a woman who wanted a career, wanted to do something meaningful in her life, and yet the times and her situation kept her from it. She survived one brief, bad marriage and divorced, a shocking thing in the day; then she married Ruth's father, a man she truly loved and who adored but couldn't understand her. Through all the notes and letters is the wish that her daughter have the opportunities denied her. Even in her senior years, she kept trying to re-invent herself, and somehow she made me think of the people who can never answer the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" For Ruth Reichl, admiration for her mother and for the sacrifices her mother made for her sake came too late for acknowledgement, but that they came is a blessing.
My relationship with my own mom was very different. She was, for one thing, the great cook that Reichl's mom never was, and I credit her with my love of cooking. And in my adult years, she was one of my best friends--we shared a lot of laughter and good times, and she adored her grandchildren. But I suspect she, too, was a bit frustrated.Widowed early, with a young son, she was at first unable to cope but eventually had a career as the secretary (a word used in those days) to the chancellor of the University of Chicago, Robert Maynard Hutchins, the man who, among other things, started the Great Books program, of which Mom was a devotee. After she married my father, Mom never worked but she put her considerable talents to work as manager of the gift shop at the hospital where Dad was the administrator and as a charming and gracious hostess. Still, she knew it would have embarrassed my old-fashioned father for her to have an independent career, and so she never did. I never heard her complain, and all the years I was growing up I thought her the happy housewife in a way that I would never be--she showered and put on a fresh dress every night before Dad came home, she set the table with white linen every night (we had napkin rings), and she served his favorite meat and potatoes meals. I was never more proud of her than at the reception when she turned a sprightly eighty. But now I wonder if there was a corner of Mom that held a bit of disappointment, a bit of unhappiness. And I wish she'd left a trail of letters and notes.
By the time I achieved career success as director of a small academic press and modest success as an author (and was raising four children as a single parent), a series of TIAs had eroded Mom's mind to the point that I've never been sure she understood or was happy for me.
My kids are proud of my professional accomplishments, sometimes proud to bursting, and I am grateful for that, but Ruth Reichl made me think of my mother.