1. She taught me how to read. My mother sat me down in front of her every single school night and made me read out loud to her during third- through fifth-grade. I hated it then, but appreciate it today. It wasn't that I couldn't read, it was that, just like today, I was easily distracted and then couldn't always remember what I had read. So, Mother taught me to focus so I could comprehend. I still don't enjoy reading -- funny thing to admit after spending the past 10-years as an editor, but it's true.
2. She never complained. Her father died when she was only eight- or nine-years old, so her mother (my grandmother) was left to raise six children on her own. From what I've learned, my grandmother was about the hardest working woman in Southern Illinois, working all the time in order to provide for her children. Although my mother wasn't single, it's those lessons in frugality that Mother continued to teach us when we were growing up. When my parents began to struggle financially, Mom went to work in a T-shirt factory, standing on her feet in a sweat box all day in deplorable conditions. But she never complained, and I appreciate that she never made me feel like I was the burden that forced her to work in such conditions so I could go to the movies, buy new shoes, go to football games and all the other demands of one's senior year in high school. Later, when Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and Mom locked herself in their house with him for nine-months before deciding that he needed to be placed in a nursing home, she never once complained.
3. She allowed me to be me. My high school years, especially my senior year, were rough. My parents absolutely hated my boyfriend, and while my father would try to ground me and keep me away from him, Mother patiently waited for me to get him out of my head. Unfortunately, Daddy was right on this one, but I appreciated that Mother wanted me to figure things out on my own. She also encouraged me to "be who you want to be. Don't worry about what others might think."
4. She served the Lord and others. Mom had a voice that others dreamed of, and until her Essential Tremors took that voice away, she sang in the church choir faithfully. She passed that gift on to my older sister, who sings like a bird still today. Mother volunteered - at school events, as my Girl Scout leader, at church dinners and other gatherings, and later in life, she participated in local non-profit events such as walk-athons. She donated her time, talent and treasure to various causes that touched her heart, especially anything related to Alzheimer's disease (since that's what took Daddy away from us).
5. She taught me how to be a good mother and wife. I am a good mother and I am a good wife. How many women say that out loud? Many of us question our capabilities, time spent with family, etc. But I know I have been a good mother and wife, because I know I had the best example. Am I like her? Not always. Mother waited on my dad hand and foot - I do not do that. She laid out his clothes for him every morning. Do I do that? No. She had dinner waiting for him on the table when he got home from work. Do I do that? Well, in all honesty, I wish I could, and I would if I didn't also work outside the home. She always, always carved out time for us, whether it was to take us to the community pool, to teach us something new, to lay on the terrazzo floor with us for naps or read to us, to huddle with us during hurricanes - and I always loved that time.
On Day 5 of my mother's Birthday Week, these are the things that I'm thinking about and wishing everyone could feel about their mother as I do about mine.
Here's Mom participating in a fundraiser for a local Alzheimer's organization.
Thanks, Mom.
