My Mom

Thursday, October 27, 2022.  Today would have been my mom’s 90th birthday.  She was an amazing woman.  She grew up in a very different world from today.  She was the second to youngest of seventeen children, and she told us she used to stand on a stool to reach the stove so she could cook breakfast for everyone.  Crazy, right?  But with a family that large, everyone had to pitch in.  People learned true life skills back then.  She was an excellent seamstress.  She used to make fancy dresses for herself, and me and my sister.   She was drop-dead gorgeous but also strong as all get-out and not afraid of hard work.  She tended the garden; she made repairs around the house; she helped with the cows and chickens when we moved to the country.  She and my dad cleared an entire hillside of trees by hand.  She was incredibly smart, too.  She taught herself Greek when she met my dad.  And then when I was in my late teens, she started having health issues.  She began a slow decline over the next couple of decades, and then was never the same.  It felt like I lost her long before she was actually gone.  I miss my mom, but I’m so thankful God blessed me with her, and I’m so grateful to have known the incredible person she was before the illness took her.  I’ll see you whole and beautiful again someday, Mom.  Happy Birthday.