My mother used to say that all the time, particularly when I was heading to school or work. I had nearly forgotten. She passed away 33 years ago, so I’ve lived more years without her than I did with her. I often fear that more and more of her is being lost to me over time. But the other day that sentence popped into my head for no discernible reason.
Have a day.
Not have a good day. Not “blessed” or “fun” or “safe” or “interesting” or any other adjective you can think of. Just “have a day.” It never occurred to me to ask why. She always said it enthusiastically, so I sort of figured the “good” was implied.
My mother was a lover of shortcuts. She packed a lot into her schedule. She would always write “thru” instead of “through”, long before texting made short-cutters of us all. She would run so many errands at once, to save herself a trip, that it often left me breathless. I once saw her drive the wrong way down a one-way street because it was faster. (Admittedly, there were no cars in sight, but still, don’t try this at home.)
It suddenly occurs to me that “have a day” wasn’t simply one of her shortcuts. In retrospect, throwing “good” into the mix is very limiting. It makes a day seem like a pass/fail. Good or bad, a day is still a day. Leaving out the adjective allows the receiver of this farewell to make of the day what he or she will. There is no room for disappointment when no bar has been set that you have to rise above. It is rare to be given such agency. I really like that she did this routinely.
Of course, I will never know if this theory of mine is correct. She’s long gone, and I have no family left who might be willing or able to answer this question for me. But I do know this: She was a firm believer in allowing people to chart their own paths. She never tried to push me toward a certain major in college or dictate what things I should or should not read.
She used to say that just when your kids start to get interesting, they leave home. She was always excited to see how we’d “turn out”. I think she saw people as works of art of their own making, and she was amazed at the sheer variety of lives being lived out there. I suspect that that’s part of the reason she loved reading and learning and talking to people so much.
My mother always made it quite clear that we had a million options in life. When I’d see more rigid parents, I looked at my mother’s wide-open abundance as a gift. But sometimes having no boundaries could be terrifying. It left me open to making a lot of really horrible mistakes. I would have liked some structure, some boundaries. (To this day I struggle with boundaries. That’s at the root of many of my problems.)
Of course, there’s always the possibility that I’m overthinking this. (That wouldn’t be unheard of.) But no matter why she said it, I’d love to have her say, “Have a day!” to me, even if just one last time.
Have a day, dear reader. Make of it what you will. Carpe that diem!
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