Thoughts about Mom

Sometimes I walk past a mirror and catch a glimpse of my Mother.  Sometimes it's her voice I hear when I open my mouth.  The other day I laughed and it was just like I remembered her laughing.  Born in 1914, next year she would have been 100.  "I'd like to live to be 100", she'd say.  Well Mom, you made it to 90 and that's longer than most. 

Mom was 43 when I was born.  I was the last of her 6 children and I nearly killed her, so the story goes, from hemorrhaging.  Thankfully she didn't die of that...or from all the times I broke her heart through the years.  She may have been older than my friends mothers, but she didn't act any different.  Always full of fun and adventure.

I remember her in pedal pushers and bobby socks, starched cotton dresses with an apron on when she was cooking, and in her Sunday best with a hat and gloves for Church.  She sewed many of her clothes and mine too.  She could make an outfit without a pattern, just by looking at a picture in the Sears catalog.  She made me dresses out of feed sacks.  Before you start imagining I was a hobo in a burlap sack, the feed came in beautiful cotton print material.  She sewed clothes for me until I became a teenager and decided homemade clothes were not cool.

She loved to cook and loved her family through her cooking.  Wonderful meals every day.  There had to be a meat, a starch, one or two vegetables and bread and butter.  We always had water with our meals.  Kool-Aid and iced tea were for special occasions like picnics, not mealtime.

I remember sitting on her lap in the rocking chair while she sang "The Old Rugged Cross" and "In the Garden", her two favorite hymns.  She loved music, singing and dancing.  In her retired years she played the washboard in a jug band with other seniors.  She loved life.

My Mom is the reason I can sew and cook and love to do both.  She's the reason I love aprons and have an apron collection.  Her love of God and "starting me off in the way I should go" is a big reason I have a personal relationship with Jesus today.  Her adventuresome spirit gave me the courage to learn to scuba dive at 55, and learn sign language and desire to keep learning new things. 

Thank you Mom.