Recently a ten year picture challenge has been going around Facebook.  One is supposed to post a pic of how they looked a decade ago compared with today.  I just happened to take this picture of my little one recently and then a few days later I came across this old picture of my mother, taken by my father.  There are thirty years and two generations separating these two but I think the resemblance is striking.  My mother had redder hair but my daughter has her fair complexion.  I see brown eyes in both; my child’s being darker because she has her father’s deep, chocolate eyes.  The cheeks, pert nose, and cupid’s bow lips are all my mother’s.  Moreover, she has my mother’s firecracker yet sweet personality.  She says the EXACT SAME things my mother said, and in the same way.  While some may not find this surprising, my mother passed right after her third birthday.  I was extremely close with both of my parents for all of my life until the day they died.  I was 28 when my father passed and I took care of my mother until she passed at the age of 81.  To have lost one’s parents and truly see them in your child is perhaps the greatest gift imaginable.  From the sweep of her long, jet black eyelashes identical to my father’s, to the same obsession with rolls my mother had, she is absolutely their grandchild.  I know my husband’s side is there, too but since they are still living she receives the benefit of knowing them.  I can only provide glimpses of what my beloved parents were like through memories, stories, and pictures.  I cannot presume to suppose what adopted children and orphans may feel; I can only express what a deep sense of genetic familial connection I have always had.  I want that for my daughter.  Every time I see or hear my folks inexplicably in my child my heart is both elated and saddened.  Of course I am elated to know they live on and I am saddened because they no longer walk this earth.  The American educator and wife of the 37th President of the United States, Pat Nixon, once said, ”All lives have triumphs and tragedies, laughter and tears, and mine has been no different.  What really matters is whether, after all of that, you remain strong and a comfort to your loved ones.  I have tried to meet that test.”  I hope I am remaining strong and a comfort as well … for my mother’s namesake. 

Thinking back on it, I am rather surprised this is the third post I have written about laundry.  It is my least favorite chore and I am always looking for ways to make it lighter.  Ha!  No pun intended.  I suppose one reason I detest it is because a lot of Saturdays as a kid were spent with my parents at an unair-conditioned laundromat.  The heat emanating from inside the glassed-in rectangular building was brutal, and I was always embarrassed because everyone could see all of our unmentionables.  First there was the challenge of trying to get several washers together, followed by the shoving/sliding in of two quarters per machine to start them.  We could not leave for fear of people stealing our clothes or tumping them out to get the machines which were always in demand.  Then came the transfer of laundry into tiny metal carts for which people also vied.  They had bars across the top for hanging things before and/or after loading them all into the dryers.  Perpetually spinning along the back wall,  they were a sea of blurred color as laundry of all sorts was dried.  Leading up to that point took at least an hour.  Afterward came the interminable wait for everything to dry.  I remember helping Daddy fold bed sheets even though I was too little to keep my side from dragging the ground.  Last, there was the dreaded steamer, which I despised most of all.  My mother would turn so red from the intense heat and sometimes get singed from the scalding water that ran down the improperly wrapped coiled pipe.  I realize in many parts of the world people still do not even have this type of luxury.  And to have one’s own washer and dryer right in their house is a blessing I place tantamount to having a working toilet.  I guess the feelings have never really left me and I have absolutely no reason to hate laundry as I once did.  But I do love anything in the likeness of animals.  We have two little plastic hedgehogs in our dryer named Spike and Tumbleweed which serve as static cling removers.  I have always wanted these elephant baskets and finally came across them, so I got one to hold lights, Ellie, and her brother, Babar, to hold darks.  Now at least our stuff is presorted and the bins are so darn cute the hubs and my little one don’t seem to mind using them.  I am hoping they will be cheery additions to our home that are not only functional but also fun.  Before I bought them, I checked that they were made from sustainable material.  The British travel writer and conservationist Mark Shand once wrote, “The elephants can survive only if forests survive.”  We do not need anymore concrete jungles, and we all should be looking at our world through the lens of protecting and preserving wild animals and the wild places they must have in which to live.  It is a heavy load to fight for wildlife, who have no voice other than our own, but having them reminds me of our blessings and our responsibilities.  As they are helping me, I am doing my part to help them:  no elephant rides; no circuses with their feet bound in chains; signing every petition against the illegal ivory trade, and supporting a worldwide permanent ban on the hunting and trapping of these gentle giants.  They say an elephant never forgets, and I do not want them becoming just another memory.