Happy Mother's Day, Mom
(This is a repost from 3 years ago. Most of you have already read and commented, no need to do so again, friends! : ) I'm just missing my mom in a big bad way this year. She's been gone nearly 25 years now.) Hope all you moms out there have a wonderful Mother's Day weekend! : )
Missing Mom
When she wasn't doing something else for her family, Mom was often sitting at her old Singer - a simple straight stitch machine from the 50s.
I remember this day in 1971 so clearly - silently stepping into the room behind her with my Polaroid Swinger and saying "Mom" when I was ready to snap her picture. She turned around with a smile, so typical of her.
Definitely not the best picture ever taken of Mom, but it's still one of my favorites. I keep it next to my sewing machine in a frame covered with buttons that reminds me of the fun we kids used to have stringing necklaces from the fascinating variety in her big button container.
She was 46 when I snapped this picture. I am already older, and though blessed with more education and more opportunities, I still feel I've accomplished so much less than what she managed with ease.
My mom was the most successful person I will ever know, even though few people knew of her. She was sweet and shy. Never one to draw attention to herself, she preferred to be in the background, helping, supporting, encouraging, serving. She didn't have a social life, her world was home and family, and amazingly, she never even drove a car.
Yet how many wonderful days did she create? How many delicious meals did she spread out before us? How many hours of patient listening? How many grand holidays did she produce out of next to nothing? How many long hours of work and worry for those she loved? How much did she give up, just to be everything to us? So dedicated, honest and unendingly faithful. I don't remember Mom ever having a bad word to say about anyone and if she was less than content with her life, she never let it show.
I didn't know till I was grown that she was near the top of her high school class, a math whiz who wanted to be a nurse and had earned a scholarship to attend college. Instead she married my dad in the midst of WWII, made a wonderful home, raised five kids . . . and helped her baby (me) get through college Algebra.
If one of us kids had an interest, Mom was into it, too. History, politics, poetry, sports, music, . . . even trains. She was brillilant and full of enthusiasm and I often think of how much she would have enjoyed the internet if she'd lived to see it. All that information out there . . . just waiting to be accessed.
Mom was my best girlfriend. She knew the whole cast of characters in my life like no one else ever will and I could always tell her anything. I often called her from school or work, just to talk, or maybe find out the score from the afternoon game at Wrigley. If it was pouring down rain and I'd forgotten my umbrella, there'd be Mom at the bus stop and we'd walk home under it together, talking all the way.
So many dear memories. The fun hours sitting in our old Hancock's fabric store, flipping through the pattern books and choosing material for a new dress or top. Standing in line with her in the wee hours of the morning for tickets to some rock concert - a bunch of teenagers . . . and my mom!! The fun of coming home from my college classes and watching the Cubs actually play some good baseball together in 1984. The comfort of opening one of her fabulous, newsy and encouraging letters during one of the difficult times in my life. I still have all of those letters - and they are still comforting. When you are loved like that, it changes everything in your world.
So this is for you, Mom. Happy Mother's Day. Twenty two years since I last saw you, and I still miss you every single day. Thank you for being who you were and for loving me so well. I'll be seeing you . . . in all the old familiar places that this heart of mine embraces all day through . . .
"All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my mother." - Abraham Lincoln
Happy Mother's Day, Mom
(This is a repost from 3 years ago. Most of you have already read and commented, no need to do so again, friends! : ) I'm just missing my mom in a big bad way this year. She's been gone nearly 25 years now.) Hope all you moms out there have a wonderful Mother's Day weekend! : )
Missing Mom
When she wasn't doing something else for her family, Mom was often sitting at her old Singer - a simple straight stitch machine from the 50s.
I remember this day in 1971 so clearly - silently stepping into the room behind her with my Polaroid Swinger and saying "Mom" when I was ready to snap her picture. She turned around with a smile, so typical of her.
Definitely not the best picture ever taken of Mom, but it's still one of my favorites. I keep it next to my sewing machine in a frame covered with buttons that reminds me of the fun we kids used to have stringing necklaces from the fascinating variety in her big button container.
She was 46 when I snapped this picture. I am already older, and though blessed with more education and more opportunities, I still feel I've accomplished so much less than what she managed with ease.
My mom was the most successful person I will ever know, even though few people knew of her. She was sweet and shy. Never one to draw attention to herself, she preferred to be in the background, helping, supporting, encouraging, serving. She didn't have a social life, her world was home and family, and amazingly, she never even drove a car.
Yet how many wonderful days did she create? How many delicious meals did she spread out before us? How many hours of patient listening? How many grand holidays did she produce out of next to nothing? How many long hours of work and worry for those she loved? How much did she give up, just to be everything to us? So dedicated, honest and unendingly faithful. I don't remember Mom ever having a bad word to say about anyone and if she was less than content with her life, she never let it show.
I didn't know till I was grown that she was near the top of her high school class, a math whiz who wanted to be a nurse and had earned a scholarship to attend college. Instead she married my dad in the midst of WWII, made a wonderful home, raised five kids . . . and helped her baby (me) get through college Algebra.
If one of us kids had an interest, Mom was into it, too. History, politics, poetry, sports, music, . . . even trains. She was brillilant and full of enthusiasm and I often think of how much she would have enjoyed the internet if she'd lived to see it. All that information out there . . . just waiting to be accessed.
Mom was my best girlfriend. She knew the whole cast of characters in my life like no one else ever will and I could always tell her anything. I often called her from school or work, just to talk, or maybe find out the score from the afternoon game at Wrigley. If it was pouring down rain and I'd forgotten my umbrella, there'd be Mom at the bus stop and we'd walk home under it together, talking all the way.
So many dear memories. The fun hours sitting in our old Hancock's fabric store, flipping through the pattern books and choosing material for a new dress or top. Standing in line with her in the wee hours of the morning for tickets to some rock concert - a bunch of teenagers . . . and my mom!! The fun of coming home from my college classes and watching the Cubs actually play some good baseball together in 1984. The comfort of opening one of her fabulous, newsy and encouraging letters during one of the difficult times in my life. I still have all of those letters - and they are still comforting. When you are loved like that, it changes everything in your world.
So this is for you, Mom. Happy Mother's Day. Twenty two years since I last saw you, and I still miss you every single day. Thank you for being who you were and for loving me so well. I'll be seeing you . . . in all the old familiar places that this heart of mine embraces all day through . . .
"All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my mother." - Abraham Lincoln