Tina Lewis Rowe

Life is Like That

My mother, Creola Kincaid Lewis, was a woman of great wisdom and common sense. I was fortunate to have her influence in my life. She had an optimistic–sometimes an unrealistic and foolishly optimistic–way of looking at everything, and a spiritual faith that assumed her optimistic view would come true if she prayed about it and worked at it. And, it usually did! A philosophical approach of hers that I most remember was her ability to say, “Life is like that,” and make it apply to almost anything.

Analogies and metaphors can be very effective in training–although they have to be used carefully because they usually break down at some point and many students will jump on the part that is not applicable. Mother often used analogies and metaphors in the teaching she did at church, and I assume she either purposely looked for examples or she habitually looked at life in that way.

I learned a lot about living and working from listening to Mom as she would observe something and say, “Life is like that.” Then, she would elaborate on the thought, and I would realize she was exactly correct–life was like the situation she had observed. Sometimes she would make it more of a question, “Don’t you think life is like that?” Once, when I was being obnoxious for some reason, I stubbornly said, “No, I don’t think life is like that.” She didn’t seem offended, she just smiled assuredly and said, “I do. And one of these days you will too.” I am sure I did!

I will not take you through the hundreds of memories I have of life being like this or that, but I will give you a short list and you can decide what my mother’s thought processes might have been. Some were obvious, some were obscure, some were very serious and many were meant to be outrageously over-done and amusing. However, she made all of them perfectly logical, and each was a learning moment for me and a teaching moment for her.

*A light bulb burning out with a ping! and sudden darkness. (That’s an easy one, right? One minute we’re burning brightly and the next, our light is gone.) Mother said this: “Wouldn’t we be silly to sit in the dark hoping the bulb will light up again? Life is like that. Sometimes things are over and done, but people sit around hoping something or someone will magically make it the way it was. Instead, they should do something about it themselves. Go get a light bulb, Tina, and let’s get the light back on.” Probably hackneyed and overly dramatic–but I was about seven years old and I still remember it!

*A charred, empty catsup bottle. (My mother burned her hand trying to get it out of the trash my brothers were incinerating.) “I should have known there was a reason it was in the trash–it was trash! Life is like that. I’ve gotten burned the most over things I would have known weren’t worth the pain, if I hadn’t been in such a hurry to grab them without really looking.”

*A four-leafed clover. “Think about that, Tina. There are millions of three-leafed clovers and you could have found one of those easily. Instead, you spent all day stepping on the three-leafed kind to find one with four. Life is like that. You’ll step on things that are perfectly fine, trying to find something that seems better just because it’s hard to get. Sometimes that’s a good idea but a lot of times it isn’t.” I was ten years old and I asked, “How does a person know whether they should do that or not?” She said, with a shocked tone, “How would I know? I’m too busy coming up with these intellectual thoughts!”

*A wrong number on the phone; getting lost; falling on the ice; cleaning; oversleeping; someone acting unpleasant; forgetting to turn on the stove when baking a cake; organizing a closet; cats; a recliner; cooking; and, of course, all the seasons and all the times of day and everything in nature!

I do not want you to think my mother philosophized or made inane comparisons excessively, because she did not. However, it seemed she never overlooked anything that life is like-and there were a lot of those things! Yesterday was the anniversary of my mother’s birthday (March 31, 1910). She has been gone for close to ten years. As you may know, you tend to think of a loved one more than ever on special dates. Yesterday I thought about her “Life is like that” conversations.

In her honor I am going to spend some time this week finding things about which I can make maudlin, outrageous, ridiculous, overly-dramatic, sentimental or introspective comparisons to life.  I have already discovered that although Mom made it looked easy because she had years of practice and a natural gift for it, it is not as easy as I thought it would be. 

Hmmmmmm. I think life is like that!

April 1st, 2008 Posted by TLR | Life and Work | 9 comments