Moms Are People
My own mother was barely 9 years old when the Stock Market Crashed in 1929. I suppose there’s not a person today who can’t imagine what it might have been like to grow up, a child of a single mom with six brothers and sisters and no meat on the table. They all worked on a ranch and went to school when they could. She knew the hard work of living.
Lots of folks had it worse than she did.
Back then, some folks lost their homes. Some became hobos. Some lived wherever they could. The ones I knew were called “family.” People took them in. I had a lot of “aunts,” “uncles,” and “cousins” who weren’t blood relations.
My mother never forgot those times or people who found themselves in similar situations.
When I was in grade school, she helped two boys I know find places at “Boys Town” because their family couldn’t afford to raise them. In some ways she was their mother too.
And just recently on a visit to our hometown, my closest friend said she met a woman I know who’s parents hung out at my dad’s saloon. The woman told my friend that, growing up, she always looked forward to my mom’s Christmas presents. “She gave us the “good” pajamas in the pretty boxes. She always put something sweet inside with them.”
My mom used to baked tens of dozens of cookies to give away every holiday season. She would frost and decorate every one of them. Sometimes I got to help with the decorating.
When we’re lucky we have a mom like that in our house every day, but even when we don’t, moms like that are all around us.
Look around. No matter our circumstances. Moms give us powers that make us better people. Moms are models of strength and rising above bad situations. They have to choose for other people to keep things in balance and moving forward. They feed our bodies, our minds, our souls. They believe in us even when we have trouble believing.
Moms are heroes.
Sometimes moms do their jobs so well, we forget they are people. We cast them in their role and only see our relationship with them, never thinking about who they were before we were there.
Sometimes we don’t see what comes to us easily.
My mom had a girl baby that died nine days after that little girl was born. That happened 3 years before there was a me. I didn’t understand what that might have meant to her and her life, until fully a year after she died. That’s when I began to understand my mom as a human being.
They say there are moms who don’t do well. It’s an overwhelming job that requires some experience of love and fearlessness.
I say there are mom all around us, even moms who are dads, even moms who’ve never had children.
If you have a mom who has given you life or know a mom who has changed your life, let her know how you’ve looked up to her when you’ve needed her.
Without the moms in the world, we wouldn’t be us.
Let the world see the moms you look up to, the moms who have made you.
Live your thank you … to its highest value.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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