Food for Thought

The hub began a home subscription to The Financial Times and we received the first copy on Sunday (or maybe it was Saturday). It was a delight to read through the weekend House & Home section which I never even knew existed in the paper. The hub tells me it's only in the weekend edition. Lovely. Thank you.

First of all, I love the color of the paper itself. It's printed on a light peach tone. Only a girl would call it that, I'm sure. This is the staple of overseas travel. It's always on every English-speaking gent's breakfast table or folded neatly under his arm strolling down the street no matter what part of the world you are in. I had never actually skimmed through it, the title throwing me off. The Financial Times, yaaawwwwwn. Who would have known there was such delightful sections on the weekends. The hub could have mentioned this years ago, ya think?

So, as we sat on the porch sipping our morning coffee, he handed me two parts of this lovely colored newspaper--House & Home and Life & Arts. I almost squealed. I read all about "What Lurks Beneath," an article on "new" housing projects popping up all over the world that are being built over toxic land that was previously used as factories or landfills, etc. They cited a huge project in Hoboken, NJ, just across the Hudson from Manhattan, that had mercury puddled underneath the floorboards. Wonderful. They had to do a major cleanup, obviously. Hoboken is close to the heart as the hub once owned a condo there, before it became such a chic place to live. (Sure wish we still had the place--we sold it when we got married, dang it.) It is also home to my favorite Italian bakery, Carlo's and right next to Jersey City which is where the hub's mother grew up, where her family owned an Italian grocery store and now where his sister and her husband now live. So, of course, it was an interesting story to read.

As I continued through this section of the paper, I came to the back-page story, "Memories of Heartfelt Mothering." This was one of those stories that makes you want to be a better person. It tells of a daughter-in-law's wishes to have been a better DIL leading up to her MIL's onset of old age. It tells of how much help her MIL was when she was so new at being a mother, all the wonderful memories of her children's milestones in the now quiet house on the Thames in London and how it had always been her refuge. Now, the tables had turned, and she was there to assist her MIL. She wished she had spent more time there, with the "friend, the ally," the nurturer. It's a lovely little article that I hope I find more of every now and again to remind me of the simple things. It reminds us how fleeting life can be and how, unfortunately, we are unable to turn back time. We only get one go at this.

I know I'm completely ahead of myself, but I truly hope to remember this story as my sons marry and begin families. I hope I can be there for them, their spouses and their children as more than just a mother, a mother-in-law or a grandmother. I hope I earn the respect and love that seems so rare these days in those relationships.