Five things my mother showed me

June Brandt, continuing the great Southern tradition of strong moms/grandmom/great-grandmoms. (Photo: Renee Peck)

I’ve written before about my Dad, maybe because he’s been gone now for almost two decades, and we tend to remember best, or at least most nostalgically, those who have left us.

But I don’t want to wait and write about my mom in retrospect. She’s way too much a here-and-now type, and at 86 is still tackling the world with curiosity and a sparkling intellect. As a parent, she’s never been one to preach, advise or criticize. She, well, just does.

So, for Mother’s Day, I offer five things my mother never told me – but showed me.

You don’t have to be a product of your environment. My mom was born and spent the first seven decades of her life in a small, rural, deep-South town, where degrees of separation are non-existent and people tend to agree about most things, from religion to politics. But she never let the tight boundaries of her physical environment limit her intellectual one, confronting issues with imagination and a capacity for analytical thinking. Sometimes she agreed with folks, and sometimes she didn’t. But she made up her own mind and based it on pondering, not pandering. Perhaps more important, in an era when stereotypes abound and people are pegged by their (alleged) belief systems, my mom proves the wisdom of not jumping to quick judgment about people you meet. Or think you know. On either side of the political and social spectrum.

That’s my mom, June Brandt, on the Great Ocean Road of Australia in 2017. (Photo: Renee Peck)

The best way to learn about a place and its people is to go there. I got my wanderlust honestly, from a mother whose curiosity about other cultures took her repeatedly out of her comfort zone. Born in a place where most people don’t see much reason to board an airplane or cross the state line for college, she instilled in us the belief that to understand other people, you need to go to them. Her insatiable curiosity about things she read about – the Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, the bazaars of Marrakesh – fueled a lust for travel. About the only thing left on her bucket list is Antarctica. And I’m sure she’ll get there.

Age is a state of mind. We tease my mom about FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). She refuses to be left behind, whether it involves dishing the latest best-seller or testing a promising new app (well, within limits, OK?). And she proves that years don’t hinder our aptitude for modernity or technology either – she facetimes her great-grandchildren and has digitalized her old slides.

When you live for the moment, the future takes care of itself. Here in New Orleans, we tend to live in the moment, enjoying that perfect salty raw oyster or stolen hour on the front stoop in the sunshine. Yes, we need to plan for the future and learn from the past, but stopping to linger in the now gives richer hues to the colors of life. It’s a lesson my mother taught me from my earliest years.

Maternal love is a thing of mystery and beauty. My youngest daughter once gave me a mug that reads, “I love how you don’t have to even say that I’m your favorite.” It made me laugh, but anyone with children knows that your capacity for loving each one of them is limitless. My mom demonstrated that this quintessential, maternal embrace is a Southern fundamental. You’ve heard the phrase “steel magnolia”? Moms down here rule with a firm but gentle hand, a broad and welcoming shoulder and infinite patience. Thank you, Mom. And my grandmother, too. We called her Greatmama, not only literally as a six-time-over great-grandmother, but figuratively as well.

Happy Mother’s Day.