My Mommy

This is my Mom.
Mom's mother joined the LDS church in the early 60s and my mom was also baptized at that time. She was 10. Being in the Air Force, they moved around the world. Education was important to them. When it was convenient, they went to church.

Mom's dad was the first in his family to get a high school diploma. He didn't get a college degree; he was a computer programmer when computers consisted of punch cards in semi trailer-sized machines. He drank heavily and wanted his children to get college educations. He valued hard work. After retiring from the Air Force, he worked for a bank, the same bank, for nearly 20 years, until his death.

My maternal grandmother kept up correspondence with friends all around the world. She did cross word puzzles, sewed, read the newspaper, and always had a cat. She cherished friendships near and far. She grew up under the care of various family members after her own mother died. It was important to her to provide a stable family life for her children.

Mom did well in school. She went to BYU where her roommates helped her to gain a testimony and become a strong, active member of the church. She regularly reminds us that when it comes time to write her obituary, we must be sure to include that she earned a bachelor's degree. Mom has fierce loyalty to companies: her bank, her grocery store, her brand of sugar, and her employer.
Mom collects people. Last week she visited a dying friend: my sister's ex- step- mother-in-law. She knows the relationships of much of the community: whose mother was a Thurgood and whose grandmother was a Flint, and who is cousin to who. She regularly asks after the welfare of Clint's siblings and their connections, as well as his parents. She has many friends. She invited library patrons to my wedding reception- and they came.

Mom used to sew all our clothes. She made dresses, shirts, ties, shorts, pants, and all those things. She quilts. She made or modified most of the dresses my sisters and I wore to school dances -- thus we always looked elegant and modest. Mom is a phenomenal amateur costumer, having supplied our family with Halloween costumes over the years. She is the de facto costumer for ward road shows. She has been of great use to the High School theater department.
Mom is politically active. She always votes in general elections, and usually in the primaries. Mom reads the paper and has had several letters to the editor published. She writes her congress people. Mom likes to travel and she loves fine art - the good art, anyway. She has a discerning eye that critically sorts the favored from the blah.

Mom speaks German every chance she gets. On vacation in Yellowstone we picked up some backpackers and took them from one spot to another in the R.V. and mom gabbled away in German with them for 40 minutes. In grocery stores, on elevators, at parks... if she senses a German speaker, she'll talk. Incidentally, she'll talk in English, too, in grocery stores, on elevators, at parks, and in the line to ride Space Mountain at Disneyland.
She raised 7 kids.

"... Richer than me you can never be for I had a mother who read to me"

She quoted dozens of nursery rhymes and bits of literature. She knows about and talks intelligently of sailing ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. When we turned seven, our birthday present was a Triple Combination. Each night, she or my father would sit with us and help us to read and understand the scriptures.

She cooked breakfast, and I'm not talking cold cereal. I hated oatmeal, and when I sensed it was coming, I'd suddenly have an early morning commitment that meant I'd have to leave for school before breakfast, and so she'd make me an egg sandwich or a breakfast burrito before cooking mush for the rest of the family. She cooked dinner. There were probably exceptions, but before she started working at the Library, I have images in my childhood of knowing that dinner would be on the table promptly at 5:30.

When we arrived home after school, mom wanted to know how our day was. If we weren't in a chatty mood, she'd pry from us at least one sentence about each class and learn who we ate lunch with. Thus she knew who our friends were, and what our major concerns were. She went to parent teacher conferences and knew all our teachers and the school administrators.

Mom went to concerts, games, plays, competitions, meets, and performances. She listened to 3 of her girls play the 6th grade orchestra arrangement of "March of the Toy Soldiers" and 4 kids going through band. Thus, she got the seventh grade standards annually for 6 solid years.

Mom loves music. She sings enthusiastically in the ward choir. She sings loud and slightly off key in sacrament meeting. Often the hymns move her to tears, which only makes her sing louder. She plays Vivaldi and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in her kitchen. She worked to pay for most of our musical instruments and music lessons. All 7 of her children play something.

She attended volleyball games where I rode the bench, basketball games that my sister started, Junior Jazz, wrestling, and multiple nights of school plays, whether her children had major roles or were barely part of the ensemble. She was the PTA president several times.

Of all the good things that my mom is and does, she didn't get a chance to earn her Young Women's medallion. I'm so glad that they have invited mothers to work together with their daughters on this. My mother ought to have hers, as her daughters do and her granddaughters likely will --- partially because of the choices that she has made and the values that she has instilled.

I like this quote from Elaine S. Dalton, as quoted in the LDS Church News:

Sister Dalton said parents and teens often tell her they are too busy to do Personal Progress. "We always say, 'What are you busy doing?' Then the young woman will give a huge long list of all the things she is busy doing. That is Personal Progress."