Simply and Dearly, Mom...

As I look back in retrospect

At those years in my life

I now deeply respect

Your example as a wife

But in those days

Those cherished days

Of home sweet home

You were and are still

Simply and dearly,

Mom

From 8:00 routine of toasting

A 22 slice loaf of bread

For breakfast every morning

As hungry mouths were fed

From the order you established

To efficiently run

The home of a large family

To get all the work done

You were in our eyes

Simply and dearly

Mom

Mom, I admire the time you took

To teach a job done right and well

Whether it was packing food into jars for canning

Smack, smack on the hand to pack, pack enough in…

Or how to properly clean the upstairs on a Saturday morning

You were so patient in our grumbling…

(and sometimes if we had a good book in our room it took a while to clean)

I remember when you taught me the proper way to make a bed

And how you said, a job worth doing is worth doing our best

I remember not then, but now, your patience if breakfast was late

You did not complain to Dad, or scold him or berate

I don’t know who invented the game ‘longest, quietest, GO!’

But with ten talkative chatter-box children it was a blessing, I know…

And we pinched our busy mouths shut, aching with the need to talk

Hoping someone would so they would be ‘out’! WE couldn’t grunt or squawk… then we pointed at the perpetrator triumphantly until soon enough we forgot and spoke…aw-w-w! I’m not sure who the regular winner was…or who gave it its name but I remember Dad suggesting we could play ‘that game’.

The ordinaries make the most beautiful memories. Dad and Mom sitting with toothpicks after a meal, and oh, every so often Dad’s blue eyes would begin to twinkle…and he would reach slowly into his shirt pocket and pull out a pack of GUM! Were there enough sticks for everyone…oh no, they’re all gone…and, and, I don’t have one! Oh, look, there’s another pack in there…of course. Mom and Dad never had favorites, or as Mom would say ‘she has 10 favorites’ if we did ask…then, after we were all chewing we would turn to appointed tasks…some to the barn, some to the dishes…some to the mud-room bench for a snooze or day-dream…

In my mind’s eye still, sometimes I hear Dad whistling hymns as he milked, mom humming as she worked tirelessly, it seemed.

Mom darning socks with a light-bulb on the inside to make darning easy…memories go on and on…

And when we say the words ‘home’ and ‘memory’

Our minds each see its own cherished spaces

But I’m sure we’d agree that the unity

Mom and Dad portrayed is the basis

For many a precious thought-picture

Of patient love and duty

And while we were busy being children

We didn’t consider their beauty

But now, as fathers and mothers

Each in our own homes

We realize how blessed we were

By the examples unwaveringly shown

And we begin to understand

That in spite of ups and downs that come

We want to be

In our child’s memory

Simply and dearly

Mom

(or Dad)

Janet~

Tonight at mom's birthday celebration each of us 10 kids will share a few memories of our childhood...