A tribute

There is one woman in this world who, along with my dad, fed, clothed, and housed me for 18 years and then sent me to college.  When I was growing up, my mother enforced good grades, taught me to do chores around the house, and bought braces for my crooked teeth.


Mom carried the unborn me all through a very hot summer; birthed me; and nursed me all through the winter.  She got me from school countless times when I was sick, made me a sick bed on the couch with my pony blanket, gave me apple juice and ginger ale and cinnamon toast, and cleaned up after me when I threw up.


Amazingly, she didn't disown me as a crying baby, an unreasonable toddler, an awkward preteen, or an obnoxious teenager.


Mom stayed home with me all through my preschool years.  She brought me to church and taught me Scripture and the doctrines of God.  She let me see daily how faith affects life.


My mom demonstrated (and still demonstrates) a faithful, long-lasting marriage.  How would I know what it is to love one man for life in glad commitment, were it not for a living example given to me?


Mom and Dad gave me years of memories of a consistent Friday night dinner date--week in and week out, we got fed and sent to the other room while Mom and Dad prepared a special meal, lit candles, set out the china, closed the dining room door.  An hour later they would emerge with empty plates and wine glasses; bellies full and marriage nourished.  My mom loved me by loving her husband more.


My southern-bred mother matter-of-factly endured many long years of extreme northern living because that's where Dad's jobs were.  She kept the family together and warm (enough), despite her obvious preference for a more humane climate.  This was just one more sacrifice she made for us.


And when I arrived home from the hospital with my first baby, overwhelmed, clueless, and weepy, Mom was there in my living room:  capable, calm, proud; cooing to my baby as she had cooed to me decades before, while she showed me how to swaddle him.


Mom stayed up all night with that newborn baby, providing comfort to him and guidance to his frightened new mother.  In later years, she would stay with us for weeks on baby watch as my subsequent babies seemed to take longer and longer to enter the world, away from her own home, ready to take charge of a young household at a moment's notice.


May God bless the woman who taught me to talk, read, use the bathroom, clean a bathroom, cook, balance a checkbook, do my best, revere marriage, fear God, and love my own babies.


Her children rise up and bless her.  -Proverbs 31:28