Saltwater is the Cure for Everything

I can hear it as clear as day, "saltwater is the cure for everything!" This was one of my mother's favorite sayings. She grew up at family cottages down on the jersey shore and this lesson was taught to her from a young age as well. Whether you fell on the beach and scraped your knee on a seashell or you had a cold, you jumped in the ocean because, well, saltwater! As kids, my cousins and I always found it so silly, but as we got older we realized that saltwater truly does have the power to heal, not just physical wounds, but emotional ones as well.

In the spring of 2020, I lost my mother suddenly due to health complications. Thankfully it did not involve Covid like countless other families, but it hurt just as bad. I don't I'll ever forget that phone call. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and reality seemed to dissolve. I don’t write this for sympathy and this story isn’t about loss and grief. I mention it because over the last year I have had a lot of time with my own thoughts to think about how I truly want to remember my mother. I am about to become a mom myself for the first time and I’ve spent countless hours thinking and journaling about all of the things I want to remember about her and all of the life lessons that I want to pass on to my own child. That’s where this love letter to my mom begins.

Setting the Standard

My dad has always told me that he could not have hand picked a better person to be the mother of his children. My mother stood barely five feet tall but she was an absolute GIANT. She was determined and steadfast in the way she wanted to raise her children. She appreciated and respected those who chose differently, but she refused to alter her beliefs about motherhood based on others opinions, even her own family. She was adamant that baby talk to us would not be tolerated, insisted that her and my dad read to us every day, and made it very clear that she would never lay a hand on us as a form of discipline. She was unbelievably patient and always took the time to meet my brother and I where we were in every aspect of our lives.

My older brother came into the world six weeks early and had terrible asthma as a child. He would wake up consistently from an attack and had to be taken to the hospital often. As a first time mom, it would have been easy to become overly frustrated and deflated having a child that needed so much extra attention so early in life. I’m sure there were moments she felt like this, but really my mom jumped in headfirst. She was patient, understanding, and showered my brother with all of the extra love and attention he required.

When I came along almost 6 years later, I’m told I was the “easy” child. I was never sick, I slept well, and for all intents and purposes was a little angel baby, as my mom would say. As I got older, however, and started eating more solid foods, it turns out I was an exceptionally picky eater. I was the child who hated peanut butter and jelly with every fiber of my being and refused to even look at a cooked vegetable. My mother, again, took this in stride and met me where I was. If she was making steamed broccoli or carrots for dinner, she would simply give me a bowl of raw broccoli or carrots which I would happily scarf down. A family member once asked her why she didn’t just make me eat what they were eating so I would learn. Her belief was there was no reason to force me to eat something that I hated and would never eat, when all she had to do was just not cook it and I was perfectly happy.

The Importance of Friendship and Family and How They Can Be One in the Same

Lifelong Friends

One of the greatest lessons I have ever learned from my mom was how to be a good friend. Mom taught us that it was never ok to judge someone we didn’t know because for all we knew, that person could become our best friend. For all we knew, that person was new to town or felt alone and just needed someone with a friendly smile to sit down and say hello. I carry that lesson with me to this day. In today’s world I find it to be an even more important part of who I am. You truly never know how a smile can change someone's entire day.

I grew up watching her maintain friendships with women she had known for 40, 50, even 60 years! When she found a soul she clicked with, she made every attempt to stay connected. She has a girlfriend whom she met in the second grade and it has never mattered where they were, or how much time went by between visits, they were a constant presence in each other’s lives for almost 60 years. She has another friend she met in the tenth grade and the story is the same.

Considering my mom was a teenager/young adult in the 70s and 80s, this really was a tall order. There were no cell phones. There was no email or social media. She wrote cards and letters and actually called other humans on the phone! She made sure to connect with friends in person whenever she was back in the Philadelphia area (her hometown) visiting family. These kinds of friendships continued with people she met in her 20s, 30s, 40s, etc. I can’t count the number of times I would have people tell me how much they loved my mom and how grateful they were to have her as a friend. It didn’t matter how long my mom had known someone, her commitment to being there for them was the same.

She always checked in on friends when she knew things were hard. She celebrated every good thing that happened to them. She helped them out where she could whether it was money, groceries, or a place to stay. I have learned so many instances where my mother did something for a friend not because she wanted any recognition, but simply because it was the right thing to do. For her, it didn’t matter if other people knew what she was doing for those close to her. Because of that mentality, many of these stories I didn’t hear until after she passed. When I think about them now, they make me smile. I strive to be that kind of friend to the people close to me, and I hope I won't fall short.

I truly believe growing up watching her live that truth and lead by example contributed to the lifelong friends my brother and I both have today. My mom loved nothing more than hosting a house full of people. She grew up in a large family and she loved the energy that a full house provided. Our home was always welcome to our friends, many of whom referred to her as mom as well. She stocked the cabinets with not only our favorite snacks, but those of our friends as well just in case they came over. She always made sure to have snacks she knew my best friend loved, but that her parents would never buy, so she’d always have a treat when she was visiting. Mom also had a three visit rule. Once you had been to our house three times, she no longer considered you a guest. It was expected that if you wanted a drink or a snack, you just raided the cabinets and helped yourself. If the front door was unlocked, our friends rarely knocked or rang the doorbell, they just walked in.

To this day whenever my friends visit my parents house or mine, most of them still just walk in when they arrive. There's something beautiful about that to me.

Family Traditions

We grew up in a house full of love where everyone was welcome. Christmas Eve at our house held that same energy. I don't remember a time we had a Christmas Eve dinner without at least 10 people, usually more. Our house would be full of friends and family and nieghbors. If you didn't have a place to go for Christmas Eve, mom always invited you to our house. Your "payment" for dinner, however, was that you were required to participate in the singing of the 12 Days of Christmas before dessert. We have these vintage water glasses with ornate artwork and the lyrics to the 12 Days printed on them.

I have countless videos of us all trying to sing this over the years. Someone always forgets their verse. Someone inevitably forgets their glasses and can't read the lyrics. Someone always sings their part in some hilarious character voice. It is a tradition full of genuine smiles and laughs and it was mom's favorite part of the evening. She was even interviewed by the local paper for this tradition a view years ago. Check out the story below!

As much as I'd love to share our home videos here, they are a special keepsake for our family. It's the kind of thing everyone will always complain about having to do, but would be disappointed if we didn't do. I intend to carry that tradition on in every aspect, opening my home to anyone in my life for Christmas, and then making them sing with me.

You are the Spitting Image of Your Mom

I am a carbon copy of my mom in every way.

Like my mom, I am a very petite woman. A good portion of my adult life has been explaining to people that if they knew my mother, or my grandmother, it wouldn’t be a shock that I was so petite. Growing up, it bothered me at times that people felt the need to comment on the fact that I was small. I didn’t understand why it even mattered. Luckily I had the good fortune of growing up watching how my mother handled herself in the world. Let me tell you, my mother carried herself like a six foot BOSS. She never allowed her size to be a factor in anything. She was smart, charismatic, witty, and confident. She knew exactly who she was and I never saw her allow anyone to diminish that. She taught me to embrace who I was too, always reminding me that my size didn’t matter. I had the power to be whomever I wanted to be and the potential to accomplish anything I set my mind to.

The year I graduated from college, I worked in the lab at the hospital she had worked at for years (mom was an x-ray technician). Whenever I would meet someone new in the hallway or the cafeteria they almost always said the same thing to me, “you must be Jeannette’s daughter!” Walking through the halls of that hospital, it felt like my mother was a celebrity. It sounds strange considering it was a hospital, but everyone knew her. This was one of my mother’s greatest strengths. She had this ability to connect with people and she used it. She took the time to get to know people throughout the hospital in all different departments, to include staff in the cafeteria and in maintenance. She mentored countless students who would consistently tell me how grateful they were to have her. They appreciated how kind and patient she was with them and how she never made them feel stupid for not remembering how to do something. She also always had snacks tucked away in her lab coat and was always willing to share when someone was hitting that afternoon slump. This was exactly who she was at her core. She simply loved people.

Since her passing, I’ve been told more and more how much I look like her. And for a while, it was extremely hard to hear. As time has gone by though, I wear those compliments with a badge of honor. My mom was a beautiful, petitie, red headed irish woman with a laugh you simply can’t forget. We have poured over old photos of her over the past year that even I have picked up and thought, “Wow, this could be me.” These have become priceless treasures to me and the more photos I see and stories I hear, the more I’ve come to realize just how deeply similar her and I really are. That’s difficult in some ways because she is no longer physically with me. In others, it’s this beautiful gift I have been given because it means she is always with me, everywhere I go.

The Greatest Lesson of All

This story started with one of my mom’s favorite phrases. From the time I was little, I have always had a connection to the ocean. We spent every summer at my grandmother’s house in Ocean City, NJ and every day was a beach day. Mom simply lit up when we were there, it was her place and it quickly became my place too. Last summer was the first time in my life I went there without her by my side. While I was deeply sad she wasn’t there, being in her place gave me a connection to her. Hearing the waves crash, smelling the saltwater, and burying my toes in the sand had a profoundly healing effect. I don’t know that it will ever feel completely normal to be there without her, but I do know that every time I am by the ocean I will think of her and these words will ring loud in my head:

“Remember, saltwater is the cure for everything.”

Thank you Mom. If I can be half the mother you were, my little one is in for a great life.