It’s impossible to sum up the influence of mothers in a short blog post, so I’ll just describe two memories that are significant to me in describing the influence of my mother on me, and the influence of my wife on my children.
Monica
This memory is more of an image than an event. It is simple, and re-occurs often. It makes me feel things are right with the world. Conrad and Riley have to be up early to catch the bus by 6:35. Monica usually gets up with them, helps them get ready, takes them to the bus stop, and then comes back to rest with Quinn. I often get up and exercise, and then come back to find her asleep in the bed, with Quinn, and now Amelia by her side. They, all three, often are facing the same direction. Quinn and Amelia look so much alike. They are all peaceful, and it is quiet. I look at them, and try to breathe in their feeling of protected stillness. I realize that this window of a mother’s relationship with her young children is fleeting.
Mom
I’ve always been concerned with things being fair, as are most kids. I didn’t expect to get special treatment, but I would often say to Mom “That’s not fair,” to which she would respond, “Life’s not fair.” The past few months, I have been wondering why things have been as difficult, uncertain, and confusing as they have been for me. There are so many lessons for me to learn from the experience, and I hope that I am learning them. They remind me though of a lesson that I learned from my mother.
I grew up in a family-run motel in Sundance, Wyoming. It was a Best Western franchise named the Best Western Apache of the Black Hills. My parents bought it with the help of my grandma in 1978. But they paid too much, and the coal business declined, and with it the truck driver business that came throughout the year. So little by little, our business failed. We were always short of money to pay the $6000 mortgage. I saw miracles happen, but after 12 years, we could no longer pay the mortgage. We couldn’t find a buyer (the market for motels in Sundance, WY is not very efficient), and so we had to let the motel go back to the owner, who had carried the note on the motel. There was a clause in the contract that if we had not reached 40% equity in the motel, we would have to walk away from the mortgage with no equity in return. We were just a few months from getting to 40% equity, but my parents still walked away with nothing to show for 12 years of working, never buying a new (or used) car, no health insurance, no retirement savings, except debts incurred trying to make the business work.
I remember that my Mom cried a lot before and after we left. I remember her asking “why?”. “Why had the former owner not been more merciful?” “Why had we not found a buyer?” “Why did the motel fail?” Those were tough times. Now as an adult, I put myself in her shoes, and I feel her real desire to know and understand.
Yet, more importantly, she did not give up, but rather moved on. I don’t remember the last time that she mentioned the words, “If only …” or “Things were not fair for me.” On this Mother’s Day, I take inspiration from this way of living. Sometimes things happen that are not fair or not right. We can react, or we can move onward and upward, in the face of feedback that says we should stop or give up. And pretty soon, our actions start other reactions that start to make it easier for us to continue to move onward and upward. Instead of getting stuck in vicious cycles begun by life’s circumstances, we can create virtuous cycles from our own faith-filled footsteps. I’m thankful for my Mother, and for this Mother’s day that I could remember a lesson from her. This has blessed me, even now 20 years later to deal with the difficulties I now face. Thanks Mom.