The eventuality of our impending deaths made my husband and I reach the conclusion that for the sake of our minor daughter’s welfare we needed to plan, write, and execute our wills quick, fast, and in a hurry!
What an arduous task!
Although Mantha inherits the accumulative effects of our toil, in other words, all of our earthly possessions, treasures, and material wealth, from my perspective, the wills did not contain “chapter and verse” of all the essential motherly “hand-me down” advice and tidbits that I wanted my darling daughter to always remember me by.
Like a broken record, over the years have verbally instilled a ton of biblical principles, an over abundance of motherly wit, sagely advice, providential insights, personal anecdotes, and a plethora of life-skills into her impressionable mind but I am smart, wise, and clairvoyant to know that “sex” mysteriously makes an intelligent, wholesome, and sensible girl forget her name!
To console my angst, however, my beautiful thirteen-year old reassures me intermittently that she intends to prudently wait until she’s in her mid-thirties before she dates, marries, and have sex!
Yeah, right!
Scrutinizing the odyssey of my life, peacock proud that all of the “hand-me down” ancestral curses that preceded my generation and simultaneously had a brutal impact upon my life were not evident in Mantha’s upbringing.
Thank goodness!
What an enriching blessing to have had her protected from an epidemic of negative genetic inheritances that often derailed and postponed the richness of my life such as dire poverty, sexual abuse, domestic violence, alcoholism, serial marriages, abandonment, rejection, emptiness, depravity, loneliness, an absentee father, gambling, hunger pains, low self-esteem, family dysfunction, and a magnitude of punishing problems, traumatizing times, and overwhelming obstacles that always compelled me to practice “knee” mail!
Sweet!
Let’s face it! Someday suspect death will snatch me at the most inopportune time, therefore, been scurrying from one nourishing project to the next nourishing project with fierce determination to remain focused and disciplined so that I can wrap-up my “bucket list” before being called “home” which explains my reclusiveness lately from many of my habitual routines and activities.
So, besides bequeathing Mantha with property and insurance money, wanted to also ensure that my girl’s life would not morally, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally become bankrupted, decayed, or demoted from riches to rags. Lovingly tucked away in the safety deposit box are some homespun checkpoints relevant for healthy living, as well as, my voluminous “hand-me down” gems that hopefully she will seriously reference whenever she is conflicted or seek whenever she is in need of some salve to nurse her inflicted wounds.
Sadly, much too often, we, as parents, surrogates, or even as care takers are either in a sleep mode or we are ricocheting through life chasing “calendars, coins, and clocks” without creating, building, and documenting “hand-me down” advice to pass along to our kids so that they can become recipients of additional parental opinions or instructions on how to thwart tears, setbacks, hurts, or regrets.
Naturally, Mantha is well-versed in my “hand-me down” philosophies such as how to test a boy’s enduring interest in her. For instance, strongly recommended that on her first date she gives her suitor a damn rake and then invite “sex machine” to rake our freaking yard as this property always yields nearly a hundred bags of leaves, debris, and tree limbs each and every season.
Separates the men from the boys every time!
Or, frequently remind Mantha to be sure that her husband’s occupation is as a farmer instead of a “tweet geek” because farmers are already acquainted with backbreaking sun-up to sun-down work rules, work practices, work habits, work attitudes, and just as important, work ethics.
Another Giggetts’ jewel often mentioned to our daughter is “when the boy knocks on the front door, he gets you.” “If he toots the horn, he gets your dad!”
Rather “jackass” gets my finger instead!
Humorously, my husband often declares that if our daughter implements my entire encyclopedic addendum to the will, surely no beau would ever want to marry her!
No worries—got an answer for that dilemma, too!
Flipping to paragraph three on page nineteen of my “hand-me down” guide, it reads, “Don’t let the door knob hit you, sucker, where the good Lord split you!”
Translation: “Freak, get the hell lost!”
Anyway, guessed you already surmised that my “hand-me down” manual is hysterically amusing, beautifully written, and lovingly potent. Designed to serve as a compilation and textured look at offering Mantha a rich array of witty solutions and straight talk while sprinkled throughout with a mother lode of wisdom on a myriad of topics that will hopefully keep her protected from crafty douche bags, ignorant dead beats, sloven low-lifers, and incorrigible undesirables while I am somewhere in heaven putting the finishing touches on my last remaining nourishing project!
