Mar. 18, 2006 - 13:59 MST

I CALL HER MOM

And that word became the highest term of love I could ever think of.

Things were rather primitive in the years before I started school. Mom stayed home with me and kept house -- the hard way.

Two little rooms in our wee house, an unfinished hole in the ground under it. A coal range for heat and cooking, a sink and sinkboard, cold water tap, a bathroom without a bath. And two huge washtubs for laundry and baths, that, and a closet for clothes. But it truly kept Mom busy. I remember her setting up two stools outside, putting the wash tubs on them and then heating and carrying water to them. She plied a wash board, Fels Naptha soap, along with bluing in the rinse water. I think back and remember the strength she used to wring the clothes before hanging them.

I remember her taking time to take me on her lap and read to me from my Child's Garden of Verses, with great patience she taught me how to name the letters of the alphabet and then got me started on learning to read. Early on she referred me to the family secondary bible, Webster's Dictionary. She instilled the love of words in my heart.

She would be 106 years old now, and perhaps is looking down on our family, I hope so.

When I started school she went back to work and did the bit of work at work and work at home. Gradually she taught me to do simple things in the way of getting things ready for dinner, cleaning and dusting in order that she could do the things we couldn't. One time she put a burned out light bulb into a sock and taught me how to darn socks. Most of my darning efforts were on my own socks, geesh, I holed them suckers like mad.

Mom would come home from work, obviously weary, but with a hug and a few sweet words of love for me, even so.

She loved little kids and managed to keep loving me through my ornery teen years, which took a lot of lovin' for sure.

There seemed to me to be an aura of golden light around her when she would be cosseting and cooing at my cousin's babies. She knew just what to do at any given moment to keep them happy, and was obviously in her glory doing so.

I grew, teen age smacked me along side the head, hormones boiling and rage at the world rose in my heart. Dad and Mom had a house built on lots they had owned for some time, finally being able to afford it.

That new house was a totally mixed blessing for me, at last I had a room of my own, there was a washing machine and wringer "Easy" was its name, but still I had to carry the wet clothes up stairs and hang them out on the line. That was the good part. But parting from my old neighborhood, my friends whom I met in first grade, having to become oriented in more or less a new land was hard for me.

Mom kept working, working on even after I got married and moved out and was talking about retiring finally.

I remember times when she and I would take a walk in the dark of a warm evening and talk about most everything, questions galore, some she could answer and give me a clue, some she would say, "You better ask your Dad about that." Much of the way I look at things and have for years is because of the teachings of my Mom, with backup by Dad.

If years are counted in Heaven, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM . . . . Her name is Lois Ivy but I CALL HER MOM . . . . . . . . . . . .

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