Mom...

I have the best mom! I do. But then, don't we all say that!  Maybe most of us. I guess there are a few duds in the bunch. Like the one I read about the other day. She hired a stripper for her 8 year old son's birthday party. "Party on, mom!" No. Not all moms are perfect. But mine was. I'll bet yours was, too.

My Mom did a lot of things. She bandaged skint knees, sewed torn pants, amazingly put buttons back on shirts. Mom worked outside of the house. Not to say that "stay at home" moms don't work. But she had a job. Over the years, several. But it didn't matter. She still had time to sew badges on Cub Scout uniforms. Wash laundry. Fold laundry. Hang clothes on the line. Linens. Bed sheets. Nothing smells better than bed sheets that have dried outside on the line. Most kids today don't know that level of goodness. They probably don't know stockings hung over the shower rod to dry. Lot's of things moms used to do that they no longer do. But moms all have that one thing in common. They "mom". How else do you say it?

If you look up the definition of "mom", you'll find it means mother. Short for momma,or maybe mommy. Or maybe mama. The dictionary says it's a noun. But I believe it's also every bit an adjective. My mom was amazing. I've learned how amazing as I've gotten older. Here are a few thoughts from my childhood.

Mom was a nurse. And a doctor. She removed splinters, applied bandages, massaged aching heads, rubbed cramping muscles, and kept a medicine cabinet full of "stuff". She had tweezers, Vick's Salve, aspirin and cough medicine, the prescription kind that really tasted good. She always had a Kleenex for when you sneezed. She knew how to soothe an aching tummy, make ticks turn loose from your skin, ointments and creams for burns and cuts. She calmed you when the chicken pox sores itched, the swollen mump cheeks ached, and was there the first time you had a tooth pulled or cavity filled. She held your hand when you got a shot, held you when you were scared, and, well, she mommed!

Mom was a chef. Yes, I've written before that dad did a lot of the cooking in our house, maybe most. But Mom produced mouthwatering roasts on Sunday. Potatoes, carrots, gravy. You remember that Sunday meal? We used the good plates on Sunday. The leftover meat would become sandwiches. Mom knew how to pack a lunch. She'd make the sandwich and wrap it up in wax paper, no zip lock bags for us! A brown bag filled with a sandwich, chips, maybe a cookie, and a canned soda, usually Shasta, wrapped in foil. Remember that? Or instead of soda, she'd give me a nickel for a milk from the school cafeteria. She made creamy mashed potatoes, used canned biscuits to make fried donuts, made pound cakes drizzled with melted Hershey bars, and phenomenal chocolate pies. Fried chicken in a cast iron skillet, and in our younger years, had us convinced that a hamburger patty with ketchup was the same as filet mignon with Heinz 57.

Mom was the maid. Besides the laundry, she mopped the floors, swept, vacuumed and dusted. Mom was proud of our house and kept it nice. She didn't have a dish washing machine, but she had two dishwashers. Me and my sister. And she was relentless about us doing our chores. Once dinner was over, if it was your turn to wash dishes, you didn't go out and play until they were done. And done right. No matter how many kids were in the yard waiting.

Mom was the peace keeper. And in the way that only moms can get away with. "Just wait until your father gets home" worked. Really well. Dad was a school principal. Imagine, your dad gets paid to paddle wrongdoers. If you were banished to your room to wait for dad to come home...life as you knew it was over. And after a time or two of that, you paid attention to Mom. Yep, she kept the peace. She was the Chief of Police and Sheriff all in one. As the comedian Sinbad calls it, she was "The Long Arm of the Maw"! And she was the one calling for you to come home when the street lights started coming on.

Mom was music lover. In her own way. Growing up, we never had a big stereo. AM radio until the early '70s. A record player. She liked some of the popular music in the '60s. I remember being at home and she was ironing in the living room. "Downtown" by Petula Clark on the old radio. But she wasn't a country fan or a rock fan. She liked choir music. Patriotic music. Easy listening. Think Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Mantovani. She didn't really sing along, but she hummed along. She hummed a lot. And she sang in church. Not in the choir. But she was going to break open the hymn book.

Mom was my friend. Maybe I didn't realize it so much, but she was. She was there when I needed here. She listened. She sacrificed so we could have things. She did things so we didn't have to. She came up with treats, surprise trips to the Dairy Queen for ice cream, fun drives to Granny's house. family time around the kitchen table. And she was always there to talk to.

Mom was a worker. She carpooled to Red River Army Depot. She worked in the refinery selling asphalt and other oil related products. She was the secretary for the County Judge. Well, several of them. Mom didn't go to college, but she did go to Business School. And while Mom didn't have a college degree, she was educated. She knew things. She made clothes. She worked with train cars and truck loads of oil related products. She typed like a shuttle headed for space. She knew shorthand. Shorthand? Look it up!  Common sense and smarts, Mom had 'em. And if you were trying to hide something...yeah, Scotland Yard had nothing on Mom.

The Lord knew what He was doing when he created moms. They make the house a home. They comfort, nurture, teach, and provide the bedrock needed for a well grounded family. Not everybody grows up with a mom, and I'm blessed that I had that opportunity. Our 7th grade Science Teacher, James B. Criscoe lost his mother the year I was in his class. I still remember how he stood at the front of the class, standing as if "at attention", hand over his heart, head tilted back and eyes closed, as he exclaimed how no one loves you like your mother. She knew you nine months before you were born, and she carried you those nine months. And that there was no loss in life like losing your mother, nothing else compared.

Mom was the one who made the birthday cakes, stuffed the stockings, who made special days more special. Whenever Mom and Dad would come to visit, she'd slip me $20 bucks or more as she hugged me before they left.

Mom wasn't vain, but she did go to the beauty shop. For years, to The Village. Every Thursday. While she wasn't vain, she had pride and self-respect. No, she never wore expensive, fancy clothes. But she wore nice clothes. Clean. She shopped for bargains. And she sewed. And she tried to make sure we always looked our best.

If Mom had a vice, it was Coke. Coca Cola. She loved a cold Coke poured out of a glass bottle. And she loved it on ice. Mom and Dad never had an ice maker until I was grown and gone. I remember Dad going to the kitchen, getting the metal ice tray out, cranking back the arm to release the ice cubes, and then standing at the kitchen sink, using the handle of a butter knife, chipping up the ice for mom. One other thing she would almost always do. When we'd go to see her mother in Kelsey, Texas, the trip home almost always would include a treat. It was easy to convince her to stop at Don's Quick Stop in Gilmer, Texas for a soda, or maybe a candy bar. Sometimes both.

When mom and dad got married, dad promised my granny, Miss Sarah (or "Granny Chevalier, as the grand kids called her), that he would take care of her daughter until he died. And that's exactly what he is doing.

I haven't lost my mom. Not yet. But she's slowly slipping away. It's been going on for a while.  I sometimes noticed when we spoke by phone, she would tell me the same things she had told me the week before. Over time, we would repeat the same conversation during the same phone call. Now, our phone conversations are rare. Dad seldom asks if I want to speak with her. I always do, but I know that on bad days, she won't know who I am, and is apt to say, "Hello Randy", and then put the phone down.

I miss my mom. It's hard when you lose someone, but they aren't gone, they just aren't there. We spent Christmas with my family in 2014. Mom got to meet my new family. Seems what she remembers is meeting the 12 year old. She always asks after her, and thinks that she is going to go see her in a concert. Never mind we are 2,000 miles away. It makes her happy. Mom and dad stayed with us for a month last year. We drove around, took in the beautiful scenery, something Mom always loved. But this trip, she mostly stared out the window. Funny how she had no idea what we had for dinner, but late in the evening, clear as a bell, she would talk about the house she was raised in, working for her sister in Port Sulphur, Louisiana during the summer months while she was still a high school student. And working at the drug store before she graduated. And I know that if she were here today, I could ask, "Mom, would you like some ice cream?" And she would answer, "Ice Cream? Why, yes. That would be nice. It's been a while!" And her face would light up, and her familiar smile would appear...