I promised myself that when I’m a mommy, I won’t do what my mommy did

When I was but a little girl, Ma brought home a throw pillow from TJ Maxx that proclaimed, “If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.”

It took me until now to get the joke.

But that pillow spoke the truth as it sat on my brother’s bed for years. Since, in time, everything comes back to our mothers. Either they are proven correct, or… we simply become them.

I am sure my experiences are not rare: The childhood incidents when it just wasn’t fair, when I promised myself that when I’m a mommy, I won’t do what my mommy did.

Well, I do. Not because I’m caught up in the same patterns of the past, but because: Oh. Ma was right. From the minor to the major, Ma’s ways just make sense.