A Birthday Blessing for my MomMy Mother is 92 years old today. She was born in 1928, just a year before Anne Frank, Martin Luther King, and Barbara Walters. The four of them could not have lived more differently.
Mother grew up on a farm in the panhandle of a Oklahoma. She told stories about riding her donkey to school and wearing dresses made from flour sacks. The Depression was full blown and money was scarce. Mother was smart; brilliant, actually. People say she was like her father. Along with farming, he kept the books at the cattle sale, doing all the math effortlessly in his head. Mother’s aunt Glenna Maude saw her abilities and offered to pay for her to go to college. I wonder how her life might have changed if she had accepted that offer? Instead, she reluctantly made a career as a medical insurance clerk, eventually becoming the manager of the clinic. I remember the day Toby came to the door with some papers. I don’t know what Toby’s job was -maybe just an errand boy- but the picture of him at our door has stuck in my mind all these years. Mother cried a little as she signed the papers. They must have been the agreement for her to return to work, because soon she was splitting her time between housekeeping and typewriting. Mother would rather have been home full time, but she went to work “Mondays, Wednesdays, and a Friday afternoons.” Her office was only a few minutes from home and she came home to make lunch every day. No sandwich ever sat on our table. All meals were hot, right off the stove, and usually included meat, potatoes, a vegetable, fruit, and dessert. Mom could cook it, eat it, clean it up, and dash back to work, all within the allotted hour. Three meals a day were served from Mom’s kitchen. All hot, all delicious. Weekends were for baking, cleaning, and getting ready for church. There were typically several pies, usually a cake, and always her famous cinnamon rolls. Mom allowed me to eat pie for breakfast since I was (happily) allergic to eggs. I still think the best breakfast is apple pie! Mom’s life was complicated with almost constant pain. All the medications she knew from her work were ineffective for her. The doctors who employed her tried everything they knew, then sent her to the best specialists they could find, but there were no answers. Finally, a pain specialist found a medication that keeps her brain from receiving the signal of the pain that is still raging in her body. I am not brilliant like my mother. My career is far less stressful than hers. My table is seldom set with delicious, hot meals. I am blessed with good health, free of pain. By comparison my life is so, so easy. I think seeing my mother in agonizing pain, failed by modern medicine, has made me eager to find effective alternatives. Medicine is wonderful when it is necessary and when it works, but I think of it as a last resort, not a first option. I love spraying ON GUARD essential oil in Mom’s room, chasing away the germ soup that is always stewing in her facility. When her neck is stiff and sore I have a quick solution; DEEP BLUE RUB. When she is fretful I offer her my “perfume,” a blend of oils called SERENITY created specifically to calm and relax. I can’t make her well. I can’t give back the years she suffered and toiled through the pain. But I can offer little bits of comfort and that is my great joy. Mother no longer knows me but I know her, and I am grateful for every memory of our life together. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, sweet Mother. I love you.
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
January 2020
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