A Living Tribute to My Mother

My mother is thankfully still alive, and I want to remember her life now instead of waiting until she passes on.  I want to start my tribute to my mother with the reality of her life right now, and then digress to the past to show how it used to be.  My mother is currently 77 years old.  She was 34 when she had me, the "surprise baby", the last of 4.  She has COPD, a progressive lung disease that is incurable.  She wears oxygen through a cannula in her nose all of the time.  Because of her disease, she gets out of breath easily, and therefore doesn't get out of bed much anymore.  She takes what seems to me to be tons of prescriptions, supplements, and over-the-counter medicines and no longer participates in any of the hobbies she once had.

Our biggest goal right now is keeping her as healthy as possible so that she doesn't contract pneumonia again and end up in the hospital (again).  She also has diabetes and heart problems.  It makes me sad that the active mother of my memories doesn't seem to exist anymore.  Thankfully, she still has her mental faculties, and enough resident stubbornness to remind me of days of old.  I have begun to love engaging her in conversations about the past and the things she can remember clearly.  I have recorded some of those memories in a notebook, which I have no doubt I will highly treasure someday.

My older sister, Linda, lives with my mother and father and works hard taking care of them.  Just this past year, my dad's health and abilities have declined after having a stroke, so her work load has doubled as caretaker.  She provides them all of their meals and snacks, and takes care of all of their personal needs.  It's a great comfort that someone in the family can be their caretaker.  My siblings and I try to help out as much as we can, but the vast majority of the responsibility falls on her very capable shoulders.  We are all thankful for her.

As many of you know, it is HARD to watch your parents age and fall apart.  When I think of how they used to be, it makes me so sad.  It's a reminder to really enjoy our parents and family members while we still have them; to realize how important family is, and to believe that they are worth our time, energy, and financial investment.  No, they aren't perfect, and yes they can aggravate you to death, that's for certain, but that doesn't negate the fact that they are our parents, and we should help them any way we can.

I was the youngest of four children.  My closest sibling (Linda) was 8 years older than me, so I didn't really have them as playmates growing up.  I remember playing Monopoly and Payday all by myself. I don't think my children completely realize how blessed they were to have built in playmates, because it could definitely be a lonely life at times.  I remember demanding that my mother dye her prematurely graying hair because she was older than most of the other mothers in my kindergarten class.  What a rotten kid I could be.  It didn't stop her from occasionally making cupcakes and bringing them to my class.

Before I could drive, I HATED riding the bus (introvert to the max), and she would take me to school and pick me up each day.  I bet she was so glad when I got my driver's license!  I did various things through the years like piano, voice, karate, softball and basketball, and she was faithful to take me to all of my classes and games.

My grandmother (my father's mother) lived with us until she died.  I was married and four months pregnant with my oldest at the time.  I have always been so sad that she didn't get to meet my children, but I am glad that they will meet in Heaven someday.   I loved having my Granny in our home growing up, but I never really considered until recently how hard it probably was at times for my mother to have her mother-in-law living with her for the majority of her marriage.

Even though my grandmother was usually kind and not terribly interfering like some mothers and mothers-in-law can be, I imagine it was still challenging at times to have her living there.  And that woman being your husband's mother, who has a natural predisposition toward her son, would rub anyone the wrong way at times.  However, I don't remember a lot of drama over this issue growing up.  I give my mom many kudos for that!  How many of us could successfully live full-time with our mothers-in-law?

My grandmother was a big help around the house while my mother ran the family moving company. 
I suspect any negative feelings my mother may have had about having her mother-in-law living with her were overridden with the comfort of knowing we were being well-cared for while she worked.

When my mother wasn't running the family business, she was cleaning or working outside in her flower beds.  I think gardening was how she relieved her stress from working at the office.  Her yard bloomed and developed over the years under her care until they resembled something out of a magazine.  Today, my sister Linda maintains all of the yard work, and although I am glad she enjoys it as well, I still get sad when I remember my mama puttering outside in her flowerbeds. She enjoyed them SO much.

She also grew a small vegetable garden every year, and preserved her extra harvest every year by canning.  She taught me everything she knew about this, and I am thankful for that knowledge as I "can" my vegetables every year.  My mother and my grandmother both cooked us full, homemade meals all of the time.  They were both excellent cooks and bakers.  Fried chicken, pork chops, baked hams and turkeys, mashed potatoes, green beans and the like filled my meals as a child.  We rarely ate out like so many families do today for meals.  My mother had to buy two carts of groceries when most of the kids were still at home.  I don't remember ever having a frozen dinner (except for pizza when I was a teenager) growing up.  What a blessing.

When I was a younger child, my mother and father enjoyed playing cards with their friends.  They would have them over for games of pinochle and I would  "hide" under the table while they played, listening to all of the grown up conversations.  I like cards as well, but I have NO idea how to play pinochle or what the point of the game is.

Their love for getting together with friends seem to wane as I entered my teenage years, and the stresses of life and marriage started to intrude.  I miss those younger days, and I dearly wish my mother and father would sit down at the table for a game of cards again with friends.  I can hear my mother's unique cackling laughter in my head, and it always make me smile when I think about it.

Until I was almost grown, we had a lake property about 45 miles from our house.  During the warmer months, we went there quite often.  My mother often seemed to have a hard time relaxing, and even while at our lake property, I can remember her puttering with her roses and flowers, and cleaning and organizing her kitchen and the rest of the house.  She took care of her siblings growing up, like their second mother, so she had an ingrained sense of maturity and responsibility that she had a hard time letting go of to have fun.

My other grandmother (her mother, Mary) lived within a couple miles of our house, and my mom would go over and clean and organize for her quite often.  My grandmother was crippled from a serious car accident.  When I picture my mother of my younger days, cleaning is most often what comes to mind.  She was a compulsive cleaner and somewhat germophobic..  I like things to be organized and orderly, but I can tolerate imperfection with cleanliness more than she can.  My other two sisters are more like her in this area, but they don't have four children, two grandchildren and three dogs!

During my first few years of marriage, I would take particularly tough stained laundry to my mother, and she always got them clean for me.  She never seemed to mind; in fact, she seemed to delight in my trust in her knowledge and skill.  I eventually learned to take care of these things on my own, but her help during my time of need was invaluable.  However, I didn't call her for instructions on how to boil water like one of my sisters did.  Hahaha, I told on you!

My mother helped finance some of the repairs on our first house during those early years, and she often helped out in that way when times were tight.  Not only my husband and I, but other family and extended family members as well were on the receiving end of her generosity.

Before I felt convicted to stay at home with my children, I was attending college and working, and my mother was watching my oldest daughter for me.  She often took her on shopping trips to buy new outfits or treats, and to ride the horse carousel at K-mart.  She always had a wallet full of quarters just for that purpose.  Needless to say, Alix loved her Maw-Maw.

She also cared for Jessie for just a bit when she was a baby while I worked.  My children were well cared for and I never worried about them while she had them.  In a way I broke her heart when God called me to stay home with my children because she was so attached to them, especially my oldest because she kept her longer.  She didn't get to see them nearly as much once I started staying at home. 

I never completely understood how she must have felt until Alix, my oldest daughter, and her husband moved off our property where they had been living for a year.  I had spent large amounts of time helping to care for and feed my grandson, and became quite attached to him.  When they moved to their own place and I didn't get to see him every day, it broke my heart a little (a lot).  So, now I understand exactly what my mother went through when I stopped bringing them to her house to care for them.  You understand that your children have to live their own lives and make their own decisions, but that doesn't change the effect on your heart at times.

My mother miscarried several babies, once having to ride in a sleigh through snow in North Dakota while heavily bleeding to a neighbor's house, so she could get into a truck to go to the hospital.  So the fact that she ended up with four live children is to me a testament of her perseverance and desire to have a family.   She loved to twirl up her girls' hair as infants, and as soon as my children had as much as a wee sprig, she would twirl it up on top of their heads.

She worked hard raising four children and simultaneously running a moving company almost by herself.  She was an excellent speller, and  would do computations in the air with her pointer finger.  Now she can barely sign her name legibly, and it makes me sad.  Thank goodness for the hope of Heaven and the joy of eternal bodies that don't age or die!

I feel like I'm leaving tons of information out about my mother, but I think this post is long enough.  I am glad that I had a chance to reminisce about her younger and healthier days, and share that with you.  I love my mother so much, and I hope the Lord gives her many more years before He calls her home.

If you would like to leave a memory that you have of my mother, please leave a comment, and it can add to the testimony of her life. 

Blessings,
Debbie,