Mother’s Day ties to Greenwich Meridian (c) memoir

By Emma Palova

Lowell, MI- Every year on Mother’s Day, I think about my mom Ella Konecny. That is why I dedicated “Greenwich Meridian” memoir to her. I hope to finish the book within the next few months.

Actually people have been already asking me about the memoir that covers our three-generation immigration saga. I had to put it on hold while I was establishing my Internet presence and my business Emma Blogs, LLC.

Now, that I feel well grounded I am picking back up both fiction and memoir writing.

My mother Ella is both funny and sad. She likes being the center of attention at anyone’s birthday party even at my own. I have a birthday tomorrow, one day before the official Mother’s Day. May 9th was also a national holiday in Czech Republic.

Whenever we gather around the dining table, she stands up and starts telling a joke or whatever she can think of. Ella takes that after my grandpa Joseph Drabek. Her maiden name is Drabkova. The -ova ending to Drabek, is the female linguistic twist to the male version of the name.

Mom, a former pharmacist, is witty, progressive and quickly understands new things like working on blogging projects.

“Do you have to work until you finish it?” she asked on Friday when she brought over birthday gifts early.

“Yes, mom. You have to finish a task otherwise you won’t know where you stopped and you might lose it,” I answered.

“Sure. That’s what I thought,” she nodded.

Other than just mentioning info technology, Ella hates it. Both mom and dad are refusing to get a smart phone. That drives my son Jake nuts.

“I want to send them photos of the kids,” he said. “This is crazy, they are fighting it so hard.”

“You can’t force them,” I told him. “They will resist it even more.”

Ella is an awesome cook. Ever since she retired from Ferris State University, biology department, Ella improved her chef skills by 100 percent. Not, that she was a bad cook before, but mom just didn’t have the time.

“What do you want me to make?” she always asks before we come to their home in Big Rapids.

“What do you want me to bring over?” she asks before they come  for a visit to our house in Lowell.

So, I have the privilege of picking from a wide menu of choices; anything from Moroccan beef, Stroganoff beef, Chinese to Czech dill sauce with dumplings.

I like to pick kebabs any style.

Mom Ella is a very sensitive person. She cries over both man-made and natural disasters. Mom cried over the oil spill in the gulf that destroyed a lot of marine life. She cries over the situation in Syria. She cries over our lives.

When I see her cry, I cry too. It’s somewhat of an emotional synergy.

She is generous all around; in church, with the family, close and distant and in the developing countries.

She’s getting fragile. Ella will turn 80 next year.

I can’t believe it. My beautiful and kind mother is aging. Last year, she had skin cancer removed from her face. Before that, she underwent countless surgeries, both successful and unsuccessful.

“Everybody lies to me, because it’s easy, I am old,” she said the other day. “Old people get lied to.”

As years go by, Ella is getting more stubborn. She does not want to reconciliate the discord with her only sister Anna, who lives in Czech Republic.

“Mom you should make up with your sister,” I said.

“She doesn’t want to make up with me,” she snapped at me.

Ella and dad have always strove for perfection and to fit in with the most. That may have been hard on them. Ella has a perfectly clean house where everything has its own spot.

She gets upset with me because not everything in my house has its own spot. I like to move things around. I sometimes leave dishes behind.

Ella is very vocal about my life; that I could have done a lot more with it.

“We were at this concert where Ferris students played,” she said Friday. “Can you imagine how those parents felt when they have such successful and serious kids?”

We each have things that bother us. We cover it up, hold it inside or we talk about it.

At a certain point, we have to come to terms with anything that’s depriving us of living a life to its fullest extent.

Mom has given me life and all the tools to live it.

Thank you, Mom.

Yours forever,

Emma

Cover photo of tulips by Emma White Darling of Parnell, MI.

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