Reflections on being a mother, a daughter, a granddaughter and a grandmother

Mother’s Day is best when you have little children.  I love it when it is a sleepy morning and wee ones crawl into your bed to cuddle.  That can of course happen on any day.  I love the handmade cards and the smiles and laughter.  

On this day I can reflect on my children.  Colin is much like me in many ways but stronger, calmer and better.  He is brilliant at just about everything he does but like his father and me he is a games player and a good one.  I love watching him play bridge.  His bidding is always thoughtful, sometimes challenging and he is a wonderful card player.  I am very proud that he grew up to be the man he is. Luise is a games player too but while she is keen there is a gap in her bridge skills and those of her husband. And she is good at all the things I am not, she can work with neatess and precision with a guitar, with a camera, with a scrapbook, with design, with tools and with her garden.  Luise comes from a family of bridge players, especially her dad Manny who has been a keen tournament player.

Luise with her mother

My daughter Jennifer never liked bridge although she does love most games.  She is an expert at a game called Carcasson and she initiated us to it.  She likes to play poker too but not nearly as much as her husband Jason who is the gambler, much like my dad.   Jennifer has so many outstanding qualities I am in awe of her.  She is a brilliant organizer, a superb and dedicated teacher, an adventurer, a talented crafts person.  But most of all she is kind and caring.  She works to include me in her family and with her children despite the distance.  It is she and not me who finds ways to make sure we all connect.  She is smart, she is thoughtful, she is kind and she is loving.  So I guess that makes us for the fact that she couldn’t be the other half of a women’s pair in bridge.

Jen with her youngest son Lucas

My grandmother Dora was a card player.  When she was older she lived, as many Canadians do, in Florida.  She had a condominium and a cabana by the beach.  She would go to the cabana each day and play cards in the sunshine.  There are legends about her floating poker and gin game which were illegal in her day.  She was a wonderful cook but messy like me.  I have a feeling that she was a lot like me although she was far away for most of my life so my memories of her are short snapshots.  But I know she was a ham who loved the camera.

My mother always has loved games and bridge in particular.  She loves to play and was the inspiration for our best selling bridge book 25 Conventions You Should Know.  She loves to talk about the game and she loves to win but then again unlike me she doesn’t mind losing.  “I didn’t get the hands”, she says.  

my mother Toby with me (back to you) and her great grandchildren Marcus and Jessica

Today, baring some electronic fluke we will all be together even though some are at a distance.  My mother and my sisters and brother and their children will all be here for lunch.  Colin, Luise, Marcus and Jessica will be here and will go downstairs with Ray, my mother and I to talk to Jennifer, Jason, Lucas, Malcolm and Cassidy on Skype.  I know this will be very special for my mom but then again for me too.  And in this group I can tell that at least two of the boys are future bridge stars.