To Elaine, Carol and Dale:
I wish to leave you a good sense of TIME, a realization of the Importance of Time, the knowledge that Time is constantly moving: each tick of the clock is taking Time away.
First you have to have time to maintain yourself and your spouse and your children with food, clothing, and shelter. Buying enough healthy and enjoyable food for a family with different tastes, bringing it home, cooking it, cleaning up afterwards, repeating it three times a day takes a tremendous amount of time. I know because I did this for 62 years while your father was living. I remember when I made three lunches for you three children: six pieces of whole wheat bread laid out on the drainboard, three pieces of ham, turkey or pimento cheese–mayonaise, mustard or nothing–all according to each one’s tastes. I had to finish Dale’s sandwich quickly and wrap and put it in a sack before he came into the kitchen, lest he eat it right then! I had to be sure not to give Carol any cheese. She hated the smell of it. Dale was always chasing her around the house with a piece of cheese. Elaine’s finicky appetite led me to choose her lunch wisely.
I was always trying to put extra nutrition in my family’s food like soy and cracked wheat flour. However despite the carpool’s making fun about our “health foods,” they liked my dark homemade bread. My daughter Carol was leaving home to go to college in New York. To give her love, courage and comfort she carried a loaf of my homemade bread under her arm which she munched all the way to New York.
Buying clothing, washing or sending to cleaners, changing at seasons, mending and upkeep takes time.
Having shelter in this age means a home with adequate bedrooms, an attractive yard with grass and flowers and the means to pay for it (or do it yourself), housekeep, cook, mow grass, raise flowers, make compost. You really have to juggle time around to cover all these duties.
I remember one time when Carol came home from college and found me making a flower arrangement instead of cooking or visiting with her. She felt peeved and unloved! Sometimes I would have the pansies laid out to put in the flower press instead of the table set or sometimes I would use the vegetables and fruit in an arrangement of salad so that you couldn’t tell what was to look at and what was to eat. I loved to put sprigs of purple basil in the salad for its lovely color and delicious fragrance.I remember one time I put sprigs of rose geranium in the pan before pouring in the cake dough. I didn’t say anything. When Carl ate a piece of the warm fragrant pound cake, he asked, “Why did you put perfume in this cake?”
However, food, clothing and shelter become items that are expected and hardly ever mentioned even though they are the culprits that steal away your Time on a daily basis.
To have a loving family you must spend time with your spouse. If you and your spouse go different ways, you are breaking up the family. You have to spend time with your children. This is important. It is wise to set aside time for this so that it is not neglected. Children wish to feel that they are loved and given your time.
When your children go away, write to them. Spend time on letters or phone calls or E Mail. Otherwise time will take them away for good.
Now that you have a close-knit loving family and have solved the problems of food, clothing and shelter, bring your family to church and have them spend time there and not just on Christmas or Easter.
I remember when Timothy and Justin went to Sunday School they found the children there much below their maturity and their intelligence. Sunday School children played baby games unfit for children who had grown up more. Tim and Justin wanted to quit. Their father, a fair judge, gave them the alternative, “If you read the whole Bible you may stop going to Sunday School. They did read the Bible. They both have excellent memories so this accomplishment proved useful when they received Bible questions on their school trivia contests with other schools. Timothy and Justin took part and helped the group win tremendous money for the school.
Your career whether it is business or homemaking will take up so much time you will have to discover some time for exercise. The first ten years of our marriage Carl did not find time or a place to play golf except in Galveston. There he played golf with the croupiers who worked in the Balinese Room. I suppose I got enough exercise rolling baby carriages, shopping, cooking, gardening, then later car-pooling. In 1950 I joined the First Lady, took exercise and swam, but the important exercise I took, which I think kept me alive all these years, was walking on the boulevard. Later Carl joined the Pine Forest Country Club and then the Houston Country Club and played golf on Saturdays.
A peak experience happened in our family when we took a trip all together by car to California. Time for vacations helps the family renew themselves and their relations with each other when they are young, but as they grow up, the children have to vacation separately.
Time marches steadily on, stopping for no one. I pray you find time to accomplish what you wish to. I wish to thank you three children for spending time with me all these years.
Mother