Guest Author - Pam Garlick

People everywhere seem to be instant messaging, or sending photos with their cell phones. Hey, a picture’s worth a thousand words they say. Then there is e-mail. I’m as guilty as the next of using the e-mail rather than the phone. However, I have friends and family who don’t do e-mail. I’m left with little choice but to pick up the phone.

Then again, maybe there is some value to talking face to face. Since my father passed away I’ve spent much more time with my mother. Some time just talking. In fact, we talk more now than we ever did.

I have found out my mother is quite chatty. My son noticed the same thing. And it has been a really great experience. Oh, the things we talk about!

Okay, we talk about simple stuff, like how her apartment hunting is going. About whether we’ve found a real estate agent for our house. – We are planning on buying her’s.

We also talk about the kids and grandkids. Mine. – They are obviously her grandkids and great-grandkids. – It’s funny how we used to disagree on so many things, like how children should be raised. These days we have a lot more opinions in common.

Then there are the memories that are sparked by our conversation. Things we hadn’t thought about in years. That, too, is funny, because we seem to have our own different versions of some things we remember. On the other hand, we’re often pleasantly surprised by some of the memories that are beging sparked.

When I talk to my mother face to face, I see the young woman in the wedding photo I have in my living room. I’ve suddenly come to realize just how young she was, and find myself asking her all kinds of questions. Like how she felt becoming a mother for the first, and only time. And she surprises me by answering that it was a frightening experience. – Wow! And I thought she had been a master at the art from the last contraction through my puberty. – That’s pretty much when I had decided she didn’t know anything.

Oh, yes, and we talk about those things too. My troublesome years, and how she managed to survived them. It had to be some Godly intervention. Funny, how I thought she didn’t understand me, yet from the things she says now, she actually understood much of what I was going through. She says she wouldn’t have been doing her job as a mother if she’d approved of everything I did. But she did understand.

I recently even admitted to my mother that I only thought I knew everything back then, and that it’s taken me quite a few years to realize just how little I had known. She simply smiles and nods her head with understanding.

My mother and I have shared some happy and some sad memories. We have shared a lot of laughs and a lot of tears. Most of all we have found a common ground: We enjoy each other’s company. And we might not have realized just how much we do if we had sent e-mails or talked on the phone.

Face to face conversation may be a lost art for some; but, for Mom and me it’s the masterpiece found in the attic. It wasn’t lost, just misplaced, and appreciated all the more now that it has been found again.

For any of you out there reading this, I suggest you try it. It doesn’t have to only be with a parent, it can be a spouse, a child or a friend. Someone you haven’t spoken to in a while. Take some time and you might be surprised just how rewarding it can be.

Here's a book from an author I admire, writing about relationships between mothers and daughters:



And a book to help people hold better conversations: