“An elegant sufficiency” was my mother’s signature phrase. The simple tasting of these words teases forth a constellation of memories: her sweetly gentle smile in the mix of lively company, her delightful shriek of playful protest when my father snuck up behind her, her wry look of chagrin when caught saying the wrong thing at the perfectly right moment, and her heartfelt sigh at the end of a satisfying meal, “I’ve had an elegant sufficiency.”I know, beyond all doubt, that these were her first words on that morning when she stepped away from this world into eternity and the Lord’s waiting arms: “I’ve had an elegant sufficiency.”
As I contemplate the facets of this phrase, I wonder how many of us, including myself, can embrace them as clearly as my mother did. It wasn’t that her life was uncomplicated and smooth sailing. My mother was a child of the Great Depression, and World War II was her graduation gift. Later, when my parents married, they began with very little. My father was a Grade 10 drop-out, as that was the expectation for sons of immigrant families in the 1940’s. You went to work to provide family support when you reached a certain age. But, my father had aspirations to be a teacher, and so with the full support of my mother, he completed his G.E.D., Normal School, and undergrad degree from UBC. Unusual for her generation, my mother put everything else aside to work, in order to support my father’s education. Busy at school during the day, my father also worked nights to supplement their meagre income. How lonely that must have been for my mother. While her contemporaries were busy growing their families, my mother worked; it was many years before my brother and I were born.
Teachers were not well paid in those early days, and while there was always plain food on the table along with a wealth of love, we often went without even small luxuries; new clothes, movies, restaurant dinners, fancy holidays, and other treats were few and far between. I remember those days so clearly, when I often wore hand-me-downs and couldn’t understand why the Easter Bunny delivered to my brother and me only a single chocolate egg for each. My mother never revealed her hurt over my childishly thoughtless cries, and I never heard her complain about well-worn clothes, the worry, and the scrimping. And, though the table boasted only ordinary stew, and not steak, I can yet hear her satisfied sigh at the end of a long day and a simple meal, “I’ve had an elegant sufficiency.”
After another three years of university, my father transitioned from teacher to principal. Treats ceased being treats and became a more regular part of life: hair appointments, lovely new clothes, a European holiday, and adult friendships beyond the home where my mother had for so long been rather isolated. She embraced learning. My mother studied Greek and discovered the violin, and I realized how much she would have loved to have gone to university, herself, to become a nurse. She was gifted and intelligent, but she never resented the lost opportunities, or expressed dissatisfaction with her life. Instead, she feasted on books, on music, on friends, on family, and on welcoming all to her table. And, her smile always echoed her sigh at the conclusion of an evening meal with all the family gathered around the table, “I’ve had an elegant sufficiency.”
My mother’s final years were a descent into Dementia. How cruel is a disease that steals one’s ability to speak clearly, to form a thought, to be in relationship, or to just simply function. Nevertheless, my mother never lost her sweetness or gentle manner. While she couldn’t follow the pathways of conversation and words were reduced to simple repetition, my mother always knew us, her family, and was enveloped with love and security. My father tenderly and tirelessly watched over her and met her every need, as she had supported him so many years before when he was establishing his career. As the generations of my mother’s life gathered around her bed on her final night, praying, reading her favourite scriptures, and singing well-loved songs, she gazed far off into the distance and repeated over and over, “Wow!” That single exclamation joyfully distilled a life well-lived with the full measure of “an elegant sufficiency.”
Elegance, in science, describes a process or understanding that is beautiful and perfect in its simplicity. My mother found this elegance in her quiet and resonant faith in God, which graced her life through difficulty and joy. I am not nearly so quiet and gentle, but I long for the beauty in simplicity that characterized my mother’s life. I am impatient in the midst of frustration, overly dramatic when embroiled in the passion of life, and prone to swinging on pendulums. I tend to attack life head-on, rather than seek the beauty and simplicity of the process. Nevertheless, I do share my mother’s deep faith in God, and throughout the years of my turbulent life, He has been leading me toward mornings of quiet contemplation, where I am learning to sift and measure my circumstances in the light of His Word. And, it is through this lens that I want to explore the quixotic nature of our common experiences to learn how to more fully embrace each day to the zenith of “an elegant sufficiency.”
