Let My Children Tell Their Children
As we approach Mother’s Day 2021, I am pausing for a minute to ask myself a worthy question: How can I ever repay my Mom for all that she gave me in this life?
My Mom, Sue Jean Anderson, was born to JC and Lottie Oliver on November 27th, 1951 in Aurora, IL.
So much of my ongoing perception of my Mom was shaped from our years living in a split-level home on 25 Scarsdale Road in the Boulder Hill neighborhood in Montgomery, IL.
A significant number of our family memories revolve around food. This is due in part to my Dad’s infatuation with hoping every meal would achieve apocalyptic status.
My Mom was raised by parents of very modest means with southern roots. Naturally, my favorite meals revolved around an iron skillet. Mom’s biscuits and gravy are still my favorite dish. Yes, Mom, even despite that one time I mocked your “cookie biscuits.”
My mind’s eye still pictures Mom in her long housecoat on a Saturday morning making breakfast as her three kids watched TV or circled the kitchen in roller skates.
Our home had a small office off the kitchen whose walls were lined with my Dad’s fishing rods. Mom was regularly planted in the spinning chair at the desk keeping the books of my Dad’s fireplace installation business, Fox Valley Installers. She served faithfully for years, single-handedly occupying roles as an accountant, collections agent, schedule-keeper, estimator, and receipt-tracker (mostly of Dad’s Red Lobster lunches). Most of her office work was done late at night after the kids had gone to bed.
I can picture Mom and Dad late at night playing music together just for fun or in preparation for church. I would often fall asleep hearing Mom play the organ as she sang the melody of an old Gospel song with Dad on bass singing a tenor harmony. Mom served for years at the little Baptist churches we attended playing piano and organ. She frequently played for my Dad as he would sing for the offerings. He had a habit of stopping mid-song when he would make a mistake and make some awkward comment. Mom continued to provide accompaniment to Dad despite the embarrassment to the family:)
Our little kitchen table was often filled with Mom, a neighborhood friend, her sister Judie, and her own Mother, Lottie (lovingly called Maw-Maw). We would come home from school to them laughing hysterically as they played cards or Yahtzee. In the early 80s, smoking must have been a thing because I recall all of them with cigarettes. Mom will be embarrassed by this detail, but it makes me chuckle: a bunch of Baptist women playing cards and smoking cigarettes. The audacity!
Mom never missed one of my sporting events. She was there at every baseball, basketball, or football game. One of the adjustments of my marriage to Gail was having to realize that she didn’t pay attention to my sporting events the way my Mom did. After an adult softball or basketball game, I would ask Gail if she saw a particularly important play to me, and to my disappointment, she would tell me she was consumed in conversation.
Mom on the other hand never missed a beat. Better than that, she would greet me after a basketball game and rehearse play-by-play with me the most important highlights. I could always count on her to provide the perspective in an age when video wasn’t quite as abundant. We watched Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls dominate the NBA. Every game.
She was there when I was advancing in my school district’s spelling bee, only to be disqualified for spelling the word “wrapper” incorrectly as “rapper.” This was undoubtedly due to my then preoccupation in the 80s with the emerging rap scene.
I have witnessed Mom as a fierce protector of her kids and family. There is a story I can’t share anymore out of love for my Mom, but suffice it to say, every kid in my neighborhood could tell you a story that will live forever in infamy in Boulder Hill.
There were a couple of periods when Mom had jobs outside of the home. For a time she worked filling vending machines at a large office complex. She developed a great friendship with a Black co-worker named Gladys. I am cognizant today that my own love for people of color was nurtured by this simple act of friendship by my Mom.
She worked for a time as a waitress with her sister at a restaurant at Fermilab, a high-tech particle accelerator in Batavia, IL. This did not last long apparently because she could not properly pronounce the wine names of her highfalutin clientele.
During all these years, we kids never lacked regular meals, clean laundry, new basketball shoes, or anything else we needed.
Mom deserves a nap and a Lincoln Town Car
I have the undistinguished honor of both breaking my Mom’s nose and of apparently ruining a family trip to Hawaii. I must have been about ten years old when Mom grabbed me from behind to give me a hug. I instinctively flew backward and my hard head crushed Mom’s nose. The blow was terrible and she ended up looking like Miss Piggy when she came home from the hospital, eyes bruised and nose swollen. Dad told us that the medical bill was so high that it cost us a surprise trip to Hawaii that year. Sorry, Mom:{
I used to wonder as a kid why Mom needed to take naps. At 44 years old, this subject no longer requires investigation.
My Dad used to dote on my Mom. He would surprise her with jewelry or take her on surprise shopping trips to buy new clothes. Those experiences nurtured in me a love for shopping for clothes with my own wife and girls.
One of my very favorite memories in my childhood was watching my family move from poverty to acquiring some financial means. I can faintly remember as a young child the experience of being poor. I have memories of Mom using food stamps at a grocery store and riding in the back of a delivery truck that was the family vehicle for a time.
Early in their marriage, my Dad apparently traded Mom’s cherry red ‘66 Pontiac GTO for a station wagon. I recall when Dad acquired a different wood-paneled station wagon for Mom that was wrecked almost on day one. That must have been hard for Mom in a time when acquiring new things was such a luxury.
I will never forget though when my Dad’s fireplace business started taking off in 1985-86. That year, my Dad finally traded in his old blue Chevy truck for a 1986 green Ford F150, complete with boxes and lettering of his business name. Mom though received the crown jewel: a 1985 Lincoln Town Car. It was navy with a white top and had a keyless entry! We were all so excited that Mom was getting a legit upgrade. She was the envy of people at church who apparently grumbled over my parent’s newfound materialism. This was comical given my parent’s generosity to the church and people in need. I guess that “rejoice with those who rejoice” part of the Bible was ignored by those people who had watched my family struggle for all those years.
If anyone in the world deserved a nap and that Lincoln Town Car, it was my Mom.
Let my children tell their children
Our moms bear the weight of the world on their shoulders. My Mom carried our little world with grace. She loved her kids fiercely, was faithful to her husband, helped his little business succeed, never skipped a beat in managing the house, and gave us more than we all deserved.
Sure, she occasionally got irritated with us and would storm out to go to K-Mart. We knew we had crossed the line when Mom saw a blue-light special as more comforting than her family.
Mom was there at every turn. It is hard to estimate the impact she had on who I am today. Without a doubt, I would not be the man I am today without the tremendous love and influence of my Mom.
The greatest legacy my Mom left on me was her love for Jesus. Her faith and devotion were steady and real. She nurtured in me a simple trust in Jesus that has stood the test of my own life.
My Mom was a rock in my life and still is to this day.
How can I ever repay my Mom for all she has given to me in this life?
Today, my Mom is a Grandma to my six kids. As she scans her own life, I hope she sees that being a Mom is a lot like being a gardener. You clear the ground, till the soil, plant seeds, water them, and then wait. In time those seeds sprout, grow, and eventually yield abundant fruit.
Mom, through all those years of exhausting labor, fierce love, and unseen tears, you were laying the foundation of a beautiful legacy. Every good deed I have ever done or will do, every life touched or blessed, every person influenced and inspired, any good thing that comes from my six children, their children, and their children’s children, is because of you.
In motherhood, you were the ultimate gardener.
The lines of Steffany Gretzinger’s “No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus” are a fitting testimony of your life.
Let my children tell their children
Let this be their memory
That all my treasure was in heaven
And you were everything to meNo one ever cared for me like Jesus
His faithful hand has held me all this way
And when I'm old and grey
And all my days are numbered on the earth
Let it be known in you alone
My joy was found
Happy Mother’s Day!
Your children will tell their children with deepest love and gratitude for you,
Aaron