For my mom...

I will never be as good a mother as my mother is. It is a well-known, documented, certainty, but you should know I'm OK with it. It is like playing basic gym tennis and getting to go to Wimbledon. When the serve whizzes past you, you don't feel envy. You feel blessed at having had a ticket to be there to see it.

First, you should know that my mom bristles at compliments. This post will horrify her.  When I was 13 and awkward and convinced I was the ugliest creature ever born, in a fit of exasperated frustration, I blurted out to Mom, "You just don't understand! You're..you're PERFECT!"  She was as shocked and angry as if I'd called her a nasty name. "Manda, I am NOT!" she retorted, and we just stared at each other, full of love and being misunderstood,  tongue-tied and knowing all words would somehow take us further away from where we wanted to be.  She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and has no idea.  When you ask her who the most beautiful woman who ever lived is, she will say, her mother. I say, Grandmother is a close second. She, my mother's mother,  was like a light, with her blond hair and her garden and her good posture and her crisp white blouses, playing golf and bridge and watching the Braves on TV.  Her laugh was like a wind chime and she was strong as steel. And her daughter is all the best of who she was, and more. So, you see, how blessed I am, and how I will never be what they are or were, but it is a blessing all the same.

My mother is funny and wise, but not in a way that demands attention. She can play any sport, and play it well,  and she makes the best vegetable soup, ever.  She is beautiful in her dressed up for work clothes (tailored and classic) and in the clothes she bikes in...(baggy shorts, layered t-shirts, men's tube socks, visor, water, snack, gum).  She brings me big glasses of ice water and takes me shopping even though I hate shopping. My mother is quiet, and has the ministry of presence down pat. She can, just by being in a room, make everything better. There is a sense that all is right with the world with her in it.  She has a way of being in a room and not taking up any space, and yet, changing the whole feeling of the whole space into something that is happy and good.  She gave me space and peace to grow up in and a love of words and learning, a lovely and warm and good broth to simmer in, as I figured out who I was and who I would be. She's the oldest girl of 5 children, so I figure she was a mother-type early on, and has had lots of practice.

My mother is smart as a whip and good to the bone. She has 3 Master's degrees. She teaches little children to love reading, and she loves the kids so much more than "administration" and rules. She lets them check out books anytime they want to, not just on library day, and lets them check out books regardless of whether they can read them or not. She believes every child can learn and that love is something every child needs. I think she believes in her heart that if every child could just have the right kind of love, in the right amounts, that most of the world's problems would be solved. She is a great judge of character and is no respecter of those outside indicators that we are so proud of: pedigree, station or money.  She respects good people, or people in need, or people trying to do their best. People routinely underestimate her, and because she is never in it for any kind of recognition, she lets them.

My mother loves literature and a great poem and she "gets it," all the deepest truths that I love to find in great ideas. She is all about the transcendent and understands about a great sermon or a fine novel or a perfect turn of phrase.  I recall listening with her to Eudora Welty read "Why I Live at the P.O." on reel to reel tape and laughing until we cried. She brought it home like a treasure and we set it up in the dining room.  The smell of furniture polish still makes me think of it, "Then I pulled the electric oscillating fan out of the wall by the  cord and everything got REAL hot." Great day, that was the funniest thing I have ever heard. And to hear my mama laugh with it made it best of all. When someone says something that would be perfect in print, we say, "Put it in the book," and laugh. Another proud moment was when she finally heard me preach in person, just this past July. She teared up a little and said, "You have a gift." I thought, well, my first gift was being your daughter, actually...if you want to get technical about it.

Mother would say that it hurts a person deep down inside if they don't have a reliable and loving mother of their own. She would say kids can make it without many other things if they have enough love. She would say it is our responsibility to share the love we have received to help people who didn't get it growing up.  She would say it is a ministry. I would say, she's absolutely right.  And, no of course she's not a perfect mother, but she is about as close to perfect at loving somebody as anybody I know, and she's certainly the perfect mother for me.