A mom like no other

It’s not that I need a designated day to think of my mother, but I admit Mother’s Day directs my thoughts more her way than usual.
I’m getting to the age where I resemble my own mother more and more. I don’t know how that happens. For forever I was young and she was old.
And then she died, and she is frozen in time.
If a person were measured by if they left the world a better place, my mom would be on the positive side of the ledger.
Her biggest attribute was that life did not center around her, though I’m guessing she could have influenced events to be otherwise.
Her formative years were in Australia, where her father was a bigwig. They lived in a fancy house with servants. Her mother was a beauty and they led a busy life entertaining important people.
My mother and brother attended boarding school.
The joke when I was growing up was mother’s staunch defense of public education and how she would never have us “shipped off” to some private school. As if they could.
My parents met at university in Australia and married when dad’s year of study was up. News of their marriage made the society sections of Sydney’s newspapers and magazines. It was only after her death that I found such clippings featuring her as an American debutante.
I’m not sure if mother knew what she in for, but she went from the lap of luxury not to poverty, of course, but to a very spare life. As far as I know, she reveled in helping dad out at the newspaper in between minding four children. Our standard fare for dinner was meatloaf, spaghetti, canned mackerel, baked chicken and mac and cheese. I never remember going to a restaurant growing up unless we were in a city. Dad maintained no restaurant could match mom’s cooking, though I remember my mother’s roll of the eyeballs every time he attempted the flattery. She knew the true story. Times were tight.
As they became able to afford modest luxuries, my parents’ lifestyle remained much the same. She swore by her Ford Taurus station wagon, continued to clean house in preparation of the cleaning lady, and took her role as volunteer as seriously as any paid position.
Even though mother had once experienced “high society,” she never harkened back to those days or seemed to have any particular longings. I think she knew what a blessing it was to be a mother and how great the rewards would be. That was all she needed.