My mom's birthday was yesterday but tonight we'll get together for cake and some cards to celebrate her 93rd birthday! 93 years! My mom has been the strongest woman role model I've had in my life and I can honestly say that I have learned all of life's best lessons.
My mom was a teacher. She taught 2nd grade at a parochial school for almost 30 years and other than a maternity break here and there she never took a day off or called in sick.
My mom was a volunteer. Up until a year ago my mom volunteered her time at our local soup kitchen, making sandwiches and offering smiles to the local homeless people here.
My mom is very spiritual and WHOLLY Catholic. To this day, she goes to church every day. Until last year she also kept a vigil on Saturday's at a chapel in a local nursing home. She volunteered her time to help the church count the weekly donations and make deposits. She was on the church council and was a reader at the Masses on Sunday. My mom's religion is very important to her.
My mom wore the pants in our family and still does. My dad was a pacifist who hated when there was a ruckus or argument. His solution was to try not to make waves. My mom on the other hand could stop any foolishness with just "the look" which let us know we were perilously close to some kind of doom. We never let it get beyond "the look" so I have no idea what doom that may have been! To this day, all of us grown, know that there are things we do that will bring that "look" and, even as adults, we try to avoid it at all costs.
I haven't always done what I know my mom would have me do. For example, I am not religious at all. I don't happen to believe in a god though I've had 12 years of Catholic school. I know that disappoints her and, because of what she believes, makes her afraid for my afterlife. I know that some choices I've made in life haven't always been what she would have chosen for me. For example, she really wanted me to be a teacher but I chose another course of study at college and an entirely different career path.
But I also know that what my mom wants for me, and for all my siblings, is that we are happy and healthy and loved. And I know that deep down she is proud of me.
My best image of my mother is this -
Back when she was a mere 75 years old, I went over to her house to see her. I walked in and heard some god-awful pounding and the "blam blam" of something being knocked with a large object. I went upstairs and found her in her room knocking out a wall with a sledge hammer. When my parents bought her house, there was only a master bedroom and one small bedroom. They turned the master into two smaller bedroom to accommodate us kids. At 75, with her kids moved out and her husband gone, my mom decided she wanted her master bedroom back and rather than hire someone to do it for her she borrowed a sledge hammer and went at it herself. Then, she finished off the dry wall and painted it too. Yup, that's my mom. A pillar of strength and boat load of tenacity.
At 93, she still lives in her own home on her own. Still drive a car too albeit only to a nearby grocery store and to church once a day. Her mind is sharp as a tack and she lives to play cards with her children twice each week.
She's a helluva a strong woman and I hope that I have some of that when I grow up!
