“It’s not a shame to have roaches — it’s a shame to feed ’em!”
-my mom

In honor of Mothers Day, I want to share a few thoughts about my mom. We live two states apart so I don’t see her as often as either of us would like, but we are still quite close.

Young

My mom married my dad just months out of high school. Two years later, she had me. Her entire plan was to be a wife and stay-at-home-mother. There was nothing revolutionary about that back then – it was what most women wanted.

Beautiful, perennial, resilient — the flower is nice, too.

Make it fun

Because Mom was young when she became a mother, my earliest memories of my mother were fun. She was lighthearted and just plain happy. We lived on a quiet street with other young families, so the kids would play and the mothers would visit. Apart from the occasional broken window or bloody nose (both of which Mom handled with dispatch), there was little to no drama. Mom would get offended when movie theaters tried to sell her a children’s ticket when she took us kids to a show.

A song

My mom had taken piano lessons as a girl, but that musicianship didn’t follow into her adult life. She sang a lot, though, making up little songs about things my sister and brother and I were doing. I remember that her love of music continued in other ways, too. Some of those famous Motown hits were brand new when I heard them on the front stoop via Mom’s transistor radio.

Being there

Some other time, I’ll tell the story of my parents’ divorce — or maybe I won’t. The point I want to make here is that through all of her own pain, my mother went back to school and went to work and still found a way to be attentive to us kids, our schooling and our extracurricular activities. During that time she found a living faith.

Those weren’t fun years, but we had food, a home and love. The quotation at the top of this post was from that period. We didn’t have a lot, but we never became destitute — Mom saw to that.

Reading

Mom always loved — and still loves —  to read. We all gave her a Kindle a couple of Christmases ago, and she absolutely loves it.

My younger brother was a middling student in his elementary years. One evening while Mom was reading, he asked her, “Why would anyone choose to read when he didn’t have to?” She answered that it was fun and interesting, and that someday he’d find something that fascinated him, and reading would “happen” for him as a result. Spoiler alert: He graduated summa cum laude and went on to earn a Master’s degree and a doctorate.

Resilience

If I got my optimism from my dad, I got my resilience from Mom. She has faced each challenge — including two spinal surgeries last year — with grace and good humor. It’s rare to talk to her when she isn’t enthusiastic about what I’m doing and excited to hear about the news from around our house.

Joy

This is Mom’s secret weapon. Her faith has sustained her through loss, through pain, through career ups and downs, through the aches and pains — and worse — that living long can bring. Still, she perseveres. I am thankful for her love and support — and her example.

Disclaimer: Your mom may vary. Also, I’m certain each of you is proud of your own mother, so I invite you to tell her story in the comments section below. (You can even send her a link if you want – one more reason I’m glad we keep it PG-13 around here!)

So how about you? What lessons did you learn from your mom? Brag on her in the comments section so everyone can appreciate her.