Mother

My Mother was, without question, the most influential person during my formative years. She reared six children without much help from my Father. She worked, at times, three jobs to make ends meet. She always looked professional and was always on time to her job. She rode the city bus and took her meager lunch in a brown paper bag. Every day she would get up and prepare breakfast for her six children. We ate a loaf of bread and consumed a gallon of milk every day for breakfast. Often the milk was the powdered kind because it was cheaper. Mom either made us lunch to take to school or would give us enough change to buy lunch or she would buy a book of lunch-tickets. Mostly in the early years of school, we took our lunch because it was cheaper. Mom cooked dinner.

My Mother always had too much to do but she never missed a Little League game, or school play or open house or teacher conference (although I wished she would have taken a pass on the stressful teacher conference events) or a Boy Scout important event or a speech tournament or a choir performance or anything that was important to me and I was one of six. Mom never missed signing my report card or responding to the teachers when I behaved badly, which was far too often. She never missed a chance to discipline me when I deserved it. I was probably the most challenging child she had, but she never let me know it. She was the ultimate multi-task driven person. We never missed a meal and we never wore dirty clothes. She had a washing machine and a dryer but she often hung the clothes on the clothes-line to save money. We had one phone and one bathroom and she regulated and directed traffic for the use of both of these critical areas of our lives. She took me to work and picked me up.

Mother always expected more out of me than I gave because she saw more in me that I did. Now many years after she is gone, I am writing to tell you and remind me what a remarkable person she was. She taught me to get up every day, put your left foot in front of your right foot and start walking.

Mother prayed continually for me and her prayers were answered. The answer has a name: Norma. She taught me to dress and act like I owned the place and always behave like God was watching, which of course He is.