Ab Initio

Ab Initio

Ah, those Romans.  This adverb initiates from the Latin root meaning beginning, to commence a new year, a fresh start although as I was preparing the house, and refrigerator, for guests over the past couple of days, it struck me how so much of what I do rises from the actions of my mother before me.  A quote posted recently from The Five People You Meet in Heaven expressed this same sentiment.  Our lives emerge from those what have gone before, whether in acts of replication of acts of mindful rejection.  So when I am precise in the way I fold the top sheet down, pattern showing beneath the edges of the pillows, and my husband shakes his head at my insistence that this is the way it should be done, I feel the touch of my mother’s hand; she, who would never have been described as domineering, is the master of much that I do.  My fabric is woven with hers.  From the beginning, mom, I thank you.