This marvel actually began this past Thursday night when my two beautiful daughters came to visit me for a belated 70th Birthday Celebration. We have a “vacation home” and it was just the three of us for four days. Although I didn’t discuss this with my daughters, I was worried. And here is why…mothers and daughters, daughters and mothers…books have been written by the hundreds on the subject of “getting along” with each other, especially “living together” for even a handful of days. There is the kitchen and the way things are done; there is the expectation of each other’s concept of a vacation; there are times to be planned and an equal amount of times to not be planned. The issue is that until everyone is together, all of these thoughts cannot be addressed.  In reality, just for the girls to come away requires an incredible amount of planning and dependence upon others. To ask, in the middle of all of this preparation, about a schedule in the future would have seemed a huge imposition, I am sure.

But Allison, Emily and I know each other so well, having danced together for decades, and our desire to enjoy ourselves and each other, was the goal, and we nailed it! We all love to walk, and each morning with the exception of one, we walked and talked, we cried and hugged, we have a history that is rich and mature, yet they are still my children, despite their status as mothers of teenagers, themselves. I look at their relationships with their own daughters and I am thrilled. Their girls come to them (and sometimes, even me) with their need for advice and guidance, and they are kind, nurturing and mentoring. They are equally so with their sons, but again, the mother-daughter relationship is incredibly complex in its scope, yet simple in its incredible importance. Daughters are modeling after their mothers, living as a testimony to or totally different from them, as an action or a reaction.

So now to the marvels of dryer lint…the girls took care of the laundry throughout the weekend, and last night, it occurred to me that perhaps they forgot to remove the lint from the dryer. My fear of fire was in my mind when I went to the laundry room after they had gone to bed. I pulled out the lint catcher and lo and behold, other than the smallest amount from the pants that were just dried, there was no lint. I couldn’t help but smile, and a tear rolled down my cheek…they are my daughters, they learned what I could teach them. The smallest act, that of removing the lint, made me feel their teacher. They then teach their daughters, and so on it will go.

I have learned and continue to learn from them, and I treasure what we have. The next time we are together, they will be crazy busy working mamas, driving everyone from one point to another, fulfilling their goals of being the best they can be. But I/we had an amazing moment in time, and for that, I am eternally grateful, and the memories we made are ours forever!

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