blessed

This mother's day weekend I have been rather sick. Being sick has it's advantages...it reminds you of the gift of health...and in this beautiful but hectic world we live in, sometimes it is the only way we truly slow down. It's given me some time to reflect on motherhood and the double blessings I am experiencing in my life right now. First I have the supreme joy of mothering four of the greatest bundles of joy ever known to man....and I get to share the journey with not only their wonderful father, but also the love of my life. Secondly, I am blessed to experience a deep and wonderful friendship with my own mother whose example to me is one I constantly try to emulate. It is to her I "rise up" this morning to try and "bless her" as a small token of all the ways she has blessed my life completely.

The thing that stands out most to me about my mom this year is how much she has always mastered the art of contentment. I don't ever remember hearing her complain. When she married my dad at 28 (most of her community in those days thought she was destined to be an old maid) he took her to Canada on their honeymoon and took her on a boy scouts canoe trip! Yes, you read that right, honeymoon!!! Now if he were here he would loudly protest that it was at the "end" of their honeymoon and they had done some very nice romantic things on the way to the camp, but seriously...nothing much you can say to defend that. My mom didn't even know how to swim. I can remember years later when we were on a canoe trip and my dad put her, myself (probably 4 years old) and another female student (I think) in the same canoe. Sure enough our canoe was the one to overturn...I climbed onto my mom's shoulders (making it even more difficult for my mom to try to swim) and my dad...swam after the canoe!! Now in his defense we all had on lifejackets and were not in danger of drowning...but we were quite shaken up. My mom was my dad's partner in his rafting business in every sense of the word. She lived in a house full of river guides in the summer, she packed "the best lunches in Ohiopyle" for the company's daily excursions, she traveled to Canada and all over the U.S. to experience week long float trips with my dad (often with little girls in tow). It's hard to imagine this was "living the dream" to my mom in the same sense that it was to dad...but that's the art of contentment. Years later she still keeps in touch with several of those river guides...some are like family. She loves to relive those days....my dad loved them so much and in loving him she found herself content and deeply happy.

Another lesson my mom has taught me is to find delight in small things. A good cup of coffee, a fresh slice of bread from the Italian bakery, fresh strawberries (of course picked by her fresh that morning at the patch) over vanilla icecream, a call from any of her daughters, a visit from one of her sisters, the smiles of her grandchildren, anything they say, learning to master her computer, delighting in high speed internet and keeping tabs of her grandchildren through blogging...all of these are ways to absolutely make her day. It is so easy to make her happy...she works so hard at bringing happiness to those she loves, and the least efforts to try and tangibly return it are readily received and delighted over.

My mom hates being idle. It has long been a joke between my sisters and I that if mom is coming, make sure that the fridge is cleaned out, the oven is sparkling and the laundry is totally caught up...because she will find what is undone and put it to rights in no time at all. This spring when I have called home, almost every time she has been outside working her yard (she's 72 and it's a 2 acre lot)!

She often channels that industrious spirit into helping others. She definitely has a problem saying "no," but the flipside of that is that she has passed on a heritage of being quick to help others. I know how important it is in this day and age to draw boundaries allowing ourselves to make family time more important than any self-imposed guilt by saying "no." But I am thankful she taught me to hurt for others, to be quick to feel what it is like to walk in another's shoes and if at all in my powers to help, to in no way withold that help. I think growing up in a household of 8 children who lived in the depression era greatly shaped my mom in this area. As Brokaw correctly pinned that era, "the greatest generation," I think we would all benefit from transposing the lessons they learned so well (and so hard) into our own modern lives of much too easy privilege and right.

Supportive is a simple word that speaks a lot about my mom. As I already wrote, she supported my dad in all his dreams and undertakings. Even when his brain was battling Alzheimer's and Parkinson's she happily obliged his desire to buy an enormous raft that she knew he would probably never ride. Later she said she had absolutely no regrets about those decisions. He had great joy in trying to plan more river trips in his last days...and that she said was worth more than any bill. I know my sisters and father would heartily acknowledge that she was the wind beneath all our successes. She did so much to help us through any difficulties we encountered, and you've never seen someone more proud of each of our successes (and in a way that made us all delight in each other's success).

Finally, simply yet profound, she loves easily and completely. The picture at the top of this post was taken from her trip up to see us in April (for Josiah's birthday). We visited the zoo in Chicago and the following park bench signs brought a tear to her eye, made her grab my elbow and point them out.


"In loving memory of my wife, she loves this place..."

"and I love her, we'll meet again someday."

She will never be the same without my dad, yet she still "smiles at the future" (Proverbs 31:25). I would like to tell her today that none of us would be the same without her touches of grace she has continually poured into our lives. The greatest compliment anyone could ever pay me would be to tell me I am like my mother. But the truth is I know her too well, and know that is a too high of compliment. Thank you for setting such a marvelous example for me. As Maddie said to me a few weeks back, "Mom, I want to be just like you!" What a humbling knowledge but for the grace of God at work in our lives.

Proverbs 31:25-30
Strength and dignity are her clothing,
And she smiles at the future.
She opens her mouth in wisdom,
And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
She looks well to the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and bless her;
Her husband also, and he praises her, saying:
"Many daughters have done nobly,
but you excel them all,"
Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain,
But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.

"I can pass on a curse or a blessing...generations will reap what I sow." Sara Groves