She's a little lady, my mom, about five feet two inches and 125 pounds, (sorry for telling your weight), red headed and full of life. she grew up in Maryville, went to Everett High school and then to Carson Newman where she met my dad. It was her red hair that attracted him at first. She graduated with a degree in Home Economics. I'm sure her good cooking, first taught by her mother and then skills learned at school, also lured my dad in.
From as far back as I can remember, my mom was always busy, never idle. As a matter of fact, my two sisters and I have a joke about how we cannot sit down because we think we have to be doing something productive. Even if we do sit down, there needs to be something to work on while we sit. That idea is ingrained in us.
I never heard her take issue with anything my dad wanted to do; like where to vacation; how their house was to be built; even small things like where to go eat. She always considered his ideas above her own (we girls didn't get that trait). Mom and dad have hiked thousands of recorded miles in the Smokies and all over the United States.
When I was in kindergarten and for the next several years, she owned and operated a day care. She would leave at 6:30am, come home at lunch to prepare our four course, homemade dinner with food she had canned or frozen during the summer, go back to work until 6:30pm. Then she would heat up our delicious meal. After the daycare, she went back to school to be certified to teach reading where she taught for years in the county system. Being a seamstress, she made most of our clothes and even now keeps sewing projects going. Her paintings reveal that she is also an artist. Her creativity has kept her busy and also instilled in us girls that same desire.
Growing up, we camped all over the United States. I remember dad and us girls having fun while mom continued to cook us great meals and keep everything together. Not that she didn't enjoy those times, because she did, it was just her way. A good woman travels across the US in a pop-up camper with three whiney girls!
I've watched her involvement at church, helping and contributing to her church family to this day. Our parents had us there every Sunday and Wednesday and everything in between. Our whole life we watched her be considerate of others, helping the needy, forgiving, loving and caring. We learned from example.
As I look back, I see the strength that she has had her whole life. I didn't appreciate some of their parenting ways until I became a parent myself. My mom cares deeply for her children, her grandchildren, and her great grandchild without partiality. And when her parents were unable to care for themselves, she cared for them. She remains a faithful and loving wife who is now caring for her love of 63 years.
I could go on and on about my amazing mother but I think Proverbs 31 sums it all up. She is ALL that it says and I want to thank and honor her on this mother's day for loving God, her parents, her husband, her children, her grandchildren, and her great grandchild.
"Her children rise up and call her blessed (happy, prosperous, to be admired); Her husband also, and he praises her."
Proverbs 31:28
Happy Mother's Day, Momma. I love you!
