For Mom

October 17.

The year is 1963….

Forget that. The year is unimportant. Taking precedence is the event: the nascence of life, specifically, the life of one little girl.

She says that she was a fat baby. I agree with her father in saying she was “pleasedly plump.”

After the baby-fat was shed she would never be chubby again.

She is ever slim.

She’s great at public speaking. In high school her professor was unsure how to handle her superior skill; she was leagues above the rest of her nervous, stuttering classmates. In a world where the general public fears public speaking more than death, this is indeed impressive.

Her sewing skills also developed early and with fanfare: her high school Home Ec teacher was impossible to please but she nevertheless learned to cut and pattern clothes, capable of producing charming outfits from yards of plain fabric.

When my brothers and I were young she would often dress us in matching outfits she had made, ensembles in which we’d be photographed for special occasions.

She (almost) never smiles with her teeth for photographs. She smiles with lips closed over imperfect but not unpleasant teeth.

She’s never had a cavity.

She can sing soprano.

Before the age of twelve she finished piano lessons, so she can play, but not elaborately. Playing piano for a church service is never her first choice, and is preceded by arduous hours of preparation, refusing to curse but coming close.

She’s got a much better vocabulary than the popular four-letter words.

She saves her voice for song and for teaching.

She’s taught every grade and subject, from toddling youngsters to graduating seniors. She’s led Bible studies and directed vast programs, overseeing every detail of Vacation Bible School, Sunday School and Youth Group. She substitute taught in the local school districts and chaperoned our field trips.

She’s a hostess. She always welcomed our friends and kept an open house.

She became pseudo-mother to more than one youth, and is proud still today to be called Mom by those she didn’t birth.

She is also proud to elaborately decorate the house for hosting, particularly at Christmastime, when she fills the place with lights, candles, greens, and delicious scents.

She bakes a lot for holidays. She makes pies with superior crust and filling,  and can spend hours on her feet making cookies, bars, macaroons, cakes, pies and her favored chocolate-dipped coconut balls.

She enjoys sweet things, even white chocolate.

She never drinks alcohol. She has perhaps the world’s lowest tolerance and won’t touch even wine. Yet she enjoys tomato juice.

She’s a homebody. She’s always lived within 50-miles of home, save for one errant semester in Virginia. She’s comfortable there, at home, producing and creating: magnificent cards and paper arts that shame Hallmark, scrapbook pages fit for frames, cross-stitches and quilts and table-runners to give as gifts, and occasionally dresses, vests, bathrobes and pajamas. Outside she likes the gardens: weeding and pruning, staining the knees of her pants to raise beauty from the earth.

She starts her day with coffee, vitamins, and her Bible.

Her large mug she fills half with coffee, half with pseudo-cream, no sugar. She’s dependent on this caffeine dose; without it she can expect a migraine.

Actually she is prone to migraines and spells of dizziness without seeming cause.

Despite these debilitations, however, she perseveres.

She’s dependable. She’s punctual. No, she’s early. She will always be ahead of schedule. She will come to school or church or rehearsal whether the weather is fair or foul, whether the roads are heavy with snow or slick with ice.

She maintains the tenacity of the postal service ideal.

She loves brain teasers and word games. She loves using logic to solve puzzles. She enjoys Canasta and Solitaire on the computer. She likes Yahtzee and Scrabble.

She’s read everything Elizabeth Peters has ever written; she’s partial to tales of ancient Egypt.

Her mind candy is Young Adult fantasy: she’s a fan of Twilight and The Hunger Games, Divergent and other realms of vampires and teenage drama.

She likes to go to bed early and get up well-past dawn. But she never sleeps well: there’s always a book ready at her bed-side.

She doesn’t have a smart phone nor demonstrates interest in obtaining one. She texts with precision with her sliding keyboard.

She’s recently become comfortable using a webcam.

Her favorite color is purple and her favorite flower the pink and white tiger lily.

She loves their fresh scent as well as their speckled petals.

She enjoys walking but can’t walk fast.

She can roller skate and ice skate but rarely does either.

She has the unfathomable patience to sit and stitch pictures with thin threads, forming masterpieces from innumerable tiny crosses; to trace, cut and piece together uncountable bits of fabric into a bed-size quilt of eye-arresting patterns; to bead tiny pearls and sequins onto the bodices of gowns; to stitch pockets and embellishments on vests; to sort 1,000 puzzle pieces from jumble to image; to measure, mark, cut and layer, emboss and fold hundreds of cards to gift and sell well below their worth; to sit with a student and go over the alphabet, the grammar, the number line, the math problem, over and over until a light bulb clicks on.

She is a person of indescribable complexities.

She’s terrified of snakes: even one flattened in the road makes her cringe.

She likes her bacon crispy and her favorite pizza is alfredo chicken, mushroom and broccoli from Fremont House of Pizza.

She appreciates good a cappella because she knows firsthand how difficult it is to sing.

She knows most hymns by heart. Only for the truly obscure does she need to glance at the hymnal.

She detests gory movies and is sensitive to touching ones.

She loves Gone With the Wind in book and movie form, The Ten Commandments and classic musicals.

She reads constantly, but always starts the day with her coffee and Bible.

She doesn’t like her birthday, or Mother’s Day.

For the first time last year she permitted hair dye to lighten her locks with a few highlights. Perhaps her hair is not as bright as it once was; there are a few silver streaks now.

Today we recognize that she is now one year older, not as young as she once was.

She’s an empty-nester, now, three children grown (sort-of) and moved out of the house.

Yet still she works full-time, teaching Monday through Friday from 8 AM until 3:15 PM. She teaches Sunday school each week and sings in the choir, attends service on Saturday and Bible study Thursday nights.

She’s a good correspondent and always ready to mail a package around the world.

She doesn’t say “I love you.”

She lives those words every day, instead.

So today, we wish her Many Happy Returns, thinking how blessed we are to know her.

Perhaps your birthday is not your favorite day, but we are glad you were born, Mom, and thankful for all the chances we’ve had to spend with you.