-Sheffield Lake, Ohio Photo is Mom and my brother, Jack.
My Mom was great! I was lucky in that regard. I think the saying, “There but for the grace of God go I” has a little to do with how lucky a person is if they are born unto a good Mother. I am that person.
I will relate a story she told me about when she was a child. It was
depression times. Mom lived on a small farm, in a small rural town, and they were having a party at the school. She said her and other friends were gathering at a neighbor’s farm to meet before they went to the school dance. They were all excited and were laughing and giggling the way young girls do at that age when the mother who was driving the girls there said, “Okay girls, we should be going. Does everyone have their nickle?”
Mom had lost hers. She had either forgotten it at home, miles away, or she had dropped it; but she couldn’t go to the dance, she had no nickle. None of the other girls’ parents had an extra nickle to give her. Times were that tough. So she didn’t get to go to the dance.
Mom told this story with a gleam in her eye, almost like looking back on it, the whole experience gave her the life long right to never see a child “without.” She’d give a child what she wanted if she could and hated it when any child was left out of something.
If I grabbed a pop-cycle out of the fridge in the summer and was heading outside with it, Mom would say, “Where you going with that? Who else is out there? You’re not going out there with that unless you have enough to give one to every body out there.” She wouldn’t put up with seeing someone go with out.
As I got older, I used to tell my friends when they would come over our house for dinner, or a cook out, or Thanksgiving, or whatever they were there for, “Look, my Mom is going to asked you if you’d like some more. You say no. And don’t say anything other then no; because your going to get more anyway.” She was that kind of, Mom.
I laughed to myself so many times. After warning someone they would screw up, trying to be polite and say something like, “Just a little bit, Mrs. Schrull.” and faster then a thunder clap Mom would have a whole new plate in front of them with a full meal on it.
I am a lucky man because I had a good Mom.
Here is a poem I wrote this year for my Mom. Yahoo Voices just published it. It is titled, “Memories of Mom”
http://voices.yahoo.com/memories-mom-11281014.html
lifeinlorain 