Sunday is Mother’s Day and my mind thinks back on my beautiful mother who did so much for me, Debbie, Danny and Abbie and for our daddy. I have written before that she told me to love books and to love reading. We used to have a great time reading the same books. Either I would read a book first and recommend it to her or she would read a book and recommend it to me. The year before she died, she had read through the Bible two or three times. A few years later, I read through the Bible three times in one year.
Mama had not only taught me to love reading, she also taught me to read. This led to some confusion for me when, a few years later, I was practicing for the school-wide spelling bee and my mother was reading the words to me. She read the word “rendezvous.” I had never heard it and had not seen it on my list of words. RON-DAY-VOO Mama had read to me. I told her that word was not on the list. She showed it to me. “Oh, that’s ren-dez-vious,” I said. Mama laughed and said, “No, it’s not.”
Mama had taught me to read phonetically so that word just about blew her whole teaching technique out of the water.
Although I am six years older than my sister, Abbie Gail, sometimes she can be a mother figure to me. Sunday evening, I was not feeling well, so she came and took me by the hand to try and make me feel better. She was worried about me.
My sister, Debbie, can be a mother figure to me also. She inherited our mother’s dark hair and dark eyes and her talent for cooking. When I was in the hospital, Debbie stayed near watching out over me.
I have other mother figures in my life, including aunts, church members and an adopted mom who I have never met before but will the next time she is in Madison County. I adopted her after her daughter would post these pictures of food that her mom brought her, along with the fact that she is a really sweet woman, just like my mama was.
I am glad that mothers have been given their own day to celebrate. One of my favorite songs of all times is “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” which was sung by Steve Wariner and Glen Campbell. Let us always remember “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.”
Thank you, Lord, for the good, kind mothers of this world.
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