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...
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