Gifts between mothers and daughters

I went home to northeastern Ohio this weekend to celebrate my mother's 87th birthday. She is a little more frail each time I see her now, and I linger a little longer at her door, trying to lock in her image before I head back to Cincinnati.

My family and I took her all the pretty things we knew she'd enjoy -- a rosy bouquet, the softest of blankets and pajamas, and chocolate candies that my son parceled out ever so equitably, "one for Grandma, one for me."

But the best gift I gave her was one I thought up as I sat beside her, holding her hand. Thanks started pouring out of my mouth for the gifts she has given me -- not birth or abiding attention to my health or the "big ticket" things mothers give daughters, but the small, unconscious gestures that have shaped my life.

Thanks for wetting her shoes in the morning dew to bring the freshest peony to the breakfast table. Thanks for hanging my clothes on the clothesline so that everything smelled of summer sunshine. Thanks for knowing when, as newlyweds, my husband and I needed a homecooked meal and words of encouragement. Thanks for the trips to Cincinnati on a Greyhound bus -- we called her 'Greyhound Grandma' -- to see a grandchild's play or delight over a trip to the Bonbonerie or just because she knew her all-grown-up daughter was missing her mom so much.

Life is funny. The best gifts we give our children are often the ones we didn't even know we were giving. And the words of gratitude we give our parents -- which cost nothing and seem so wholly inadequate as "gifts" -- are the ones that, as life ebbs away from them, they are able to hold onto.