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Show m But experience had overturned many of these notions. I had learned, comparatively, that staying at home and rearing children can be far more challenging and demanding than holding a job. I had learned t h a t s e n s i t i v i t y requires strength to sustain i t and that silence can sometimes say much more than words. I began to see my mother's hidden strengths and Aunt Helga carefully-veiled points of v u l n e r a b i l i t y . I saw, for the f i r s t time, that my Aunt Helga needed my mother as much as my mother needed her. Slowly I began to separate t h e i r p e r s o n a l i t i e s , as one unravels rope. Aunt Helga had been a reader, had written practiced the piano, daily in her journal - my mother had I had taken literary u/f. the^habit from Aunt Helga the desire forMiscipline from my mother. I had taken the sense of r i t u a l from Aunt Helga and the need to endow i t with meaning from my mother. I had taken a constancy of will from Aunt Helga and an a r t i s i t i c inclination from my mother. Aunt Helga had taught me love of scripture; my mother had taught me love of legend. Aunt Helga had taught /He-to discuss ideas; my mother had taught me to discuss emotion. The gift resided with them both; it could not be divided - should not be divided since i t was a l l part of the same whole. While my mother's influence on my character and my l i fe was inestimable, I could see that she had endowed me with special c a p a c i t i e s . She had given, me her tender heart, her tendency to r e f l e c t i o n , her capacity to be alone, her gentle, deliberate way with children. But Aunt Helga had shown me how to live in a world of adults, had imposed expectations on me t h a t echoed my f a t h e r ' s. She had reinforced the s c r i p t u r a l notion that 'where much is given, much i s expected.' T - c r t h r r , the frwflnM- h*d created abundant spaces for |