Moms

It's a trip down Memory Lane today for a visit with women who have raised me, shaped me. If I am anything like a worthwhile human being today, it's largely because of the women I've been lucky enough to have in my life. I have in mind my Mom, my sister, and my bride of almost 36 years, Cindy.

A common thread among all three of these: they were, and are, all protective of their own. All could be polite, mild-mannered, UNTIL you wronged one of their own. Then you'd find out that these were really tigers. They didn't have fingernails; they had claws. "Here - bring your face a little closer, so I can scratch it off."

Memory: I think it was when I was in second grade at Jefferson Elementary, the same school that two of my grandkids go to now. My teacher and the principal thought I had the mumps, so they made me go home. They made me stay home for two weeks. I didn't have the mumps, and I really did like school - the first of my really bad teachers that soured my attitude came the next year - so I was disappointed. So was Mom; she knew mumps when she saw them, and I didn't have the mumps - until my two weeks were up, and I could go back to school. That's when I got the mumps. Mom marched me into the principal's office, pointed at my face and said, "THAT'S the mumps!" I wound up with a month off. Mom wound up with a point made.

Fortunately, the teachers and administrators at (now) Jefferson-Edison Elementary today seem to have a much better idea of what they're doing than did the ones of my long-past era. Now, it's a pretty impressive lot.

I think of tigers. I think of my sister Sheri and her battle to get her son the educational program he needed. It involved battling school authorities, boards, I don't know who-all, but battle she did. And she won.Sheri has had many issues to deal with, and she has always come through. I have no doubt she will keep on doing so.

I think of the influence Mom had on my faith. We didn't wind up in precisely the same place. Mom was a lifelong Baptist. I, after a long and twisty spiritual journey, have found my home in the Roman Catholic Church. But Mom and I and Sheri all wound up with a faith that there is something bigger than any of us, or all of us. We all wound up with a faith that the confines of this life are not eternal confines (now, how's that for an oxymoron? "Eternal confines"? Really, Rick? How about, "The confines of this life do not last forever". Better.) We all have faith that God loves us, and that Jesus is alive and Jesus saves. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. . .

As does my wife. Cindy has been with me for every step of that journey. She has been with me for every step of parenting 5 kids, of grandparenting ten. I should say, I've been with her for every step of it, for she has been far better at it than I. And talk about tigers: she has battled schools over the needs of our special needs daughter, and they have found the programs she needed. She has - uh - shared her views in frank and useful discussions with other school authorities when she thought they were too free in handing out detentions to our kids. She's done the same with me when I got off the straight and narrow. I hope our kids and grandkids know how lucky they are.

Some years ago Joan Didion wrote about a 5-year-old girl. This girl was found by the California Highway Patrol. She was clinging to the Cyclone fence on the center divider on Highway 5, east of L.A. - clinging so hard that her fingers had to be pried from the fence. She'd been left on the highway 12 hours earlier by her mother. The little girl, when being interviewed by the C.H.P., said that, after her mother made her leave the car, she "ran really hard" for a while to try to catch mom. I can hear it now: "Mommy? Mommy!" Whatever sentence Mommy got wasn't enough, and I'm not sure even God could make hell's fires hot enough. I wonder how Dante would have treated this.

I have a very good idea how lucky I got, in Mom, in Sis, in my wife. I think about that every day. I am not close to worthy of being so richly blessed, but blessed I have been. I think of you every day, and I thank God for you every time I think of you.

Happy Mother's Day!

As always, I'd love your thoughts. Thanks for hanging out!