Memories & Nostalgia

Yesterday we had the family here at our home to celebrate and honor my Mother on her on her 80th birthday with food, fun and a lot of love. My brother said it best when he stated that “80 years ago today, on October 5th, 1928, the world became a better place because you were born”.

Before I get sentimental, and share some of the wonderful things about my Mom, let me share a few things things that happened the year of her birth:

• March - Movie “Legion of the Condemned” with Gary Cooper opened on the 10th; there was record trading on Wall Street for the time on the 28th
• May - the Electron Microscope was invented; Shakespear’s “The Tempest” opens on Broadway; General Electric starts a regular schedule of television programs out of WGY in Schenectady, NY
• June - Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.
• July - Television sets go on sale for the first time; Warner Brothers releases the first feature length talking movie “The Lights of New York”
• September - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
• October - Joseph Stalin’s 5 year plan is announced; the German Graf Zeppelin dirigible comes to Lakehurst, NJ. BUST BEST EVENT OF ALL, my Mom is born.
• November - Herbert Hoover is elected as President; Walt Disney’s “Steamboat Willy”, the first synchronized cartoon with Mickey Mouse in the “Star” role, opens at the Colony Theatre in New York City.
• December -Boulder Dam Act approved by U.S. Congress, approving the construction of the dam in Nevada.

There’s just a bit of the history of the year of her birth, but let me tell you some of the things that I remember about my Mom that make her very special to me:

• She is a woman of exceptionally strong faith.
• I don’t remember a night in my childhood when she didn’t come in and pray with my brothers, sister and I before we went to bed, no matter how long the day had been or how tired she was.
• Mom is strong, yet gentle.
• She loves to garden, and still does, and always has something starting under her special plant lights.
• She had the challenge of raising a multiply-disabled son right up until a few months ago when he moved into a group home.  He was born when I was 12, with a brother and sister between he and I.  It took some maturing on my part, a lot of it, to realize how hard it must have been to divide her attention among all of us when she was faced with such a challenge.
• It was at my bedside after going to Vacation Bible School when I was just a toddler that I prayed with my Mom to receive Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.   I have found that I am never too old to learn some nugget of spiritual truth from my mother.
• Mom has always loved feeding birds, and has always had a feeder full of seeds…or when we were young, a tray that we would fill and lay out in the yard, and watch as Mom identified each bird.  When the Grackles were migrating by the hundreds, I remember her going out once with a LOT of bread, breaking it, and throwing it, and it was gone before much of it had a chance to hit the ground.  Thanks to her, I, too, always have a feeder full of seeds hanging outside.
• Mom never had a drivers license, and thanks to my father’s income and careful management of money, was able to stay at home and care for her children.
• During the last 5 years of my father’s life, years in which he was taken from Mom and all of us due to a series of small strokes, Mom sacrificed herself and her back bending over him to care for him; helping him to and from wheel chair to bed; taking care of his personal needs…yes, we did have help come in, but Mom did a lot. Dad passed 11 days after her birthday a few years ago…her words when I brought her into the room after he had passed (a phone call kept her from his bedside) were “my lover is gone”.
• Mom loves cats, she went from a woman who shot at them with a super-soaker when they came in the yard to stalk her birds at the feeder, to the owner of a series of cats, 3 of which she has today.
• Mom allowed us to explore the world around us, allowing me to keep all sorts of creatures in cages, jars and aquariums in my room as long as I took good care of them, and allowing my brother to study creatures smaller than the eye can see at a young age through a microscope, which I am sure is the foundation for his being the Scientist he is today.

I could go on and on, she deserves so many accolades, and I don’t know how to put my love for her into words.  She is a treasure beyond words! I love you, Mom.