My example on Mother's Day

So, in re-reading some of my older posts I see that my own mom has been sadly neglected on this blog.  I think about her so much of the time that maybe I feel she is always with me and don't realize that I hardly ever verbalize that fact.  My mom and I are (were) so much alike.  We looked a lot alike and we thought a lot alike. She was very short, very quiet, very conservative, very loving, and very much a worrier.  She began working outside the home when our family  moved from the farm to the city when I was about 2 years old.  She had 9 children at that time (one in Heaven) and would soon have #10 and a hysterectomy.  She began cooking at a local Chinese American restaurant a few blocks from our home.  She worked evenings Tuesday-Sunday as head cook.  I especially remember stopping off there many afternoons after school and watching her as she prepared live lobsters for dinner guests.  I remember her saying that she gave them a meat cleaver to occupy them until she was ready to drop them live into the boiling water!  I also remember that many movie stars of the day stopped there to eat and she had all their autographs.  I wonder where those went?  Lots of little kitties would end up at her restaurant doorstep looking for food and make their way to our home later on in her coat or sweater.  Many mornings my younger sister and I would awake to find several new little kitties sleeping at our feet!  That is a precious memory that will be forever in my heart.  Another special memory is waking up at midnight to find my mom greasing our chests with Vick's Vaporub and taking our temps because we had been sick with a cold before she went to work that evening.  She never failed to kiss our sleeping bodies and wish us a good night.

My mom had Mondays off and us kids would take turns pretending to be sick on a Monday so we could stay home with her and thus be taken to the local grocery store in her little red wagon because Monday was grocery day and she had no one to leave us at home with.  She always got us a comic book and some candy to take home and make our day go better!  We always had to be in bed before my dad arrived home from work about 2:30 p.m. because he said if we were home sick we had to be in bed or else we weren't sick.  Looking back, of course, I now see that my dad was in on our plot all along, but he never let on and always scolded us for not being in school on a Monday!  When there are 10 kids you have to take time with your mom however you can get it - and that was our method.  Oh how we loved her and treasured our times with her, and she with us!

Mom always had high blood pressure and bad headaches but she was quite healthy, otherwise.  She began to have mini-strokes in 1979 and I began to mourn her, even though she did not die of them.  A couple of years later she was properly diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and would deal with that until 1995, when she did pass away of heart failure.  We had been in Nebraska most of that time and then in Oklahoma when she died and were not able to be with her much during those years.  One summer we took time to sit at her feet, so to speak, as she dictated her favorite recipes to me so that I would always have that part of her.  She baked and cooked instinctively and I think she had no equal in those categories.  Those recipes are still with us and Dan will probably keep most of them.

When Mom died the sisters caring for her elected to have her body cremated because they said she had expressed that wish to them.  Because of that, and the fact that we were all scattered and not able to come home for a funeral, we missed the chance to gather and talk and celebrate her life.  That was very hard and so in 1997 when my sister Marion passed away, we were able to go back to New York for her burial and a wonderful time of dinner and talking afterwards.  Thus, the healing began, though late in coming.  I think of her almost constantly and wish she was here to talk to.  I have tried to model my mothering after her example and probably will never know how well I have done - until I meet Jesus face to face and thank Him for her and listen for His "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."  I am so thankful for my mom today and so thankful that God has allowed me to me a mom also.