This would have been my mother’s 79th birthday had we not lost her earlier this year. We had really been losing her for a while, since she suffered from dementia, but we are thankful that she remained kind and patient to the end.
Kindness and patience were her hallmarks, along with a rock-solid devotion to God, which she also maintained until she could no longer hold her Bible to read it. She might not have recognized all of the people on her prayer list or been able to remember what chapters she read the day before, but she faithfully spent time praying for each name on the list and spent time reading and meditating over scripture each day.
Mom waited a lot. One of my favorite stories from before my memory of her starts is from my toddler years. I was apparently old enough to pick my own toys, but I wasn’t interested in doing so. I’m told that she just sat in the doorway to my room and calmly told me that I would not be leaving until the room was picked up, and waited until I had all my toys picked up. Calm, patient, steady discipline was characteristic of her interaction with children and animals, which is part of why both loved her.
In his partially drafted autobiography, my father wrote of telling my mother that he felt they were called to the mission field, only to be informed that she had committed her life to missions at age 12. She had simply waited for over a decade for God to pull Dad to the point where he was ready for the call.
Mom was a highly practical and capable person. She was a good cook, a good housekeeper, and a good seamstress who worked hard to help her daughters learn those skills.
She was also good at making a house a home, a skill that she had many opportunities to practice over the years. I don’t think Mom ever wanted to move as frequently as life with Dad demanded, but she never complained, just helped pack and unpack and then worked on arranging the house and its decor into a welcoming atmosphere. We recently moved, and I’m sad that I won’t have her help with the task of deciding what to hang on which wall, since she has helped me with that in our past homes.
Mom really cared about people and worked to know them well. She and I had very different tastes in clothing, both colors and style. I was very glad to grow too tall to wear her old clothes, because they never suited me at all. However, Mom was one of the few people I trusted to select clothing for me, because she took the trouble to really learn my tastes. My sister and I have very similar tastes in color, but very different in style, and Mom generally nailed both color and style for each of us, because she worked at it.
Like Dad, Mom enjoyed games and loved to laugh. Her favorite TV shows were Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. She loved to play word games, card games, and board games, and liked learning new games until the dementia made it too difficult. She tried to look at life through a lens of optimism and good humor. One friend told us that, as a newly appointed missionary, they had asked several missionary women for advice. Mom’s advice: Find something to laugh at every day.
And, of course, Mom loved music, especially singing and playing the piano. She really inspired my interest in both and taught me much, although she refused to be my formal piano teacher. Probably wise, given my personality. We did not sing together often, but it was always a joy when there was an opportunity. In her final week of life, she was bedridden, but we have a recording of her singing Amazing Grace with a couple of visitors, her voice still strong and beautiful raised in praise even in the last days.
I miss my mom, but I am so deeply grateful for the legacy of faith, the patient love, and the practical skills she left us.