I can think of no other person that has shown me what it means to “give it all” more than my mom. I know I had an incredible childhood so you would never know my mom came from a family that was shall we say, “less than idyllic.” She was the youngest of two girls with a mom and dad growing up in Southern California. She will say that she doesn’t have a lot of memories growing up because most of them she would just as soon forget. She spent most of her days running around outside with no shoes because there wasn’t money to buy them. She doesn’t remember eating a whole lot because there was never any food in the house. She recounts a few stories of the dark days with her parents. Yes, she did grow up with both her mom and dad but although they were there physically, they weren’t there emotionally. What money they did have, her parents spent on alcohol and cigarettes. She remembers times when her dad slept in the doorway of her and her sister’s room because her mom was in a drunken rampage and threaten to kill the girls with a knife. This was the kind of home life she was raised in.
My mom was a petite young girl with a beautiful smile and an attitude that gave her the strength to make the best out of her life. She longed for more, something better, something greater and she pressed on to be the best she could be. A gift from heaven came to her in the form of a bus driver. Every Sunday, a man from a local church would driver through her neighborhood and pick up kids for church. My mom jumped at the chance. Church for her was a relief, a place of happiness and hope, a refuge. It was there that my mom gave her life to Christ and she hasn’t looked back since.
Many people who were raised in the kind of situation that she was would not know how to be a great mom. There was something different about her though. There was a fight in her that filled her with a determination to be different than what she had been raised in. She decided to live her legacy by being an incredible mom. She woke up every morning and hummed praise songs as she served her family by cleaning the house, making wonderful meals and creating ordinary days into special days. It was a rare moment that she uttered a negative word; she always looked on the bright side of things. If you were around her for more than a few minutes she made you feel like you were the most important person in the world. I saw her give up her needs and desires so that we could have decent clothes and life experiences. She constantly took us to the library to get books to read and spent her time instilling Biblical principles in our lives. I remember as a young girl that she directed our girls’ program at our church and spent years investing in young girls’ lives. She was a mom to more than just me and my siblings…she was a mom to anyone who needed that “mom hug.”
See my mom was one of the those people who decided to live out her legacy in her day to day life. She gave all that she could so others would be blessed. I am a recipient of her love. To me, she is my heroine!! Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I love you!!
