For Mom...

I have been blessed with three incredible mothers in my life. One gave birth to me, one gave birth to my wife and the other I married. All are a gift I didn’t truly deserve but desperately needed to keep me on the right path. Their voices are with me wherever I go, and although there have been times when I’ve tried to tune them out, they always seem to guide me to where I need to be.

Mom stayed at home while Dad earned the paycheck, but her share of responsibility was at least equal to his. Like me, Dad travelled a lot. As a truck driver, he would be gone for a week at a time, leaving Mom to take care of four kids and the house. It couldn’t have been easy, but she never made it look hard. I never heard her complain. I never saw her frustrated, exasperated, or out of control. She just did what needed to be done, and loved us while she did it.

We were not a “touchy-feely” family, and I don’t remember ever hearing Mom or Dad verbally say “I love you” to any of us. Still, it was never in question. I grew up in the warm comfort of knowing, without a doubt, that my parents loved me. They didn’t try to be my best friend, like so many of us attempt to do with our kids today. They didn’t spoil me with a lot of stuff I wanted but didn’t need. Instead, they did all they could, sacrificing of themselves, and tried to teach us the simple lessons that would get us through.

In deference to Peter Pan, if I ever need to go to a “happy place,” it’s easy to drift back to snapshots of my childhood. I can see Mom hanging wet clothes on the line in the back yard while I rode my bike, and I remember that clean, fresh smell later as I put them on. I can see us all sitting in lawn chairs at dusk, breaking beans that we had just picked by the basket full from the garden. I see Mom sitting in church on the hard wooden pews, the purse beside her holding only Kleenex because Mom didn’t wear make-up and didn’t carry money, but she did cry if the music touched her.

I learned to cook from watching mom in the kitchen. I learned to love food from tasting her down home meals. With the exception of the occasional boiled cabbage or beets, I can’t remember anything that my mother cooked that I didn’t love. She never had to cook two separate meals or serve a bowl of cereal to one of us kids because we didn’t like what she was serving. I don’t know how our kids got so off track that they believe every meal deserves menu service. Mom wouldn’t have allowed that, but we would have never dared to ask.

Holidays were a feast, and I still don’t know how she made it look so effortless. She kept a list of everyone’s favorite foods, which grew rather large in the years after we started getting married and having kids, yet somehow she made them all. Mine, of course, was baked macaroni and cheese, but she accommodated others with oyster casserole, sweet potatoes, Waldorf salad and at least a dozen more items that someone, at one time or other, had mentioned liking. We’ve tried to get her to cut back on the list, but each suggestion is met with the response that someone likes it, as if not cooking that one thing would somehow reduce her love for them. We finally gave up. She is an immovable force.

It’s hard to imagine today, but Mom never learned to drive. I’ve tried to picture her behind the wheel of a car, but I can’t. She doesn’t belong there anymore than I belong on water skies. Some things just aren’t meant to be.

We lived in town, so we walked if we had to go somewhere and Dad wasn’t home. It was never far, being a small town, and it was never a problem. It wasn’t bad to be mobility challenged because we were homebodies, and that worked because we had a great home. I never felt the urgent need to grow up and move out. I never felt the pressure to revolt. Home was sanctuary. Home was safe.

Our family attended our small church whenever there was a service, but much more importantly, Mom and Dad raised us in a Christian home. There were many nights I saw my mother kneeling beside the bed, hands folded in front of her in prayer, and I knew that one of those prayers would be for me. If I do fail in my life, I know I will have no one to blame but myself. It will not be for lack of good examples or lack of prayer on my behalf.

Mom hasn’t always understood me (and I can’t blame her for that), but she’s always supported me. She’s never stopped being my mother. With just one look or even a tone of voice over the phone, she can still make me feel like an eight year old who stepped on her flowers. I don’t mind though, because I still need to be kept in line sometimes, and Connie appreciates the help.


I didn’t give Mom and Dad the credit they deserved as I was growing up, and I moved out without fully appreciating how good I truly had it. Not until I had my own children did I realize how much they did for me and how much they gave up so I could be happy. I hope I earned it.

Mom and Dad are coming to Tennessee for a visit next week. It’s a rare thing and I do not know how many more times they will pass through my door. I’ve made plenty of mistakes as a parent, and my kid’s lives are far more frantic, disorganized and confusing than mine was growing up, but I hope that while my parents are here, they will see glimpses of what they taught me living out in my home. I hope they will know that it meant something to me, and I’m trying to pass that on to my own kids. I hope they know how much I love them, because even though I don’t have a problem saying it anymore, I want them to feel it as much as I did…and always will.