Dan

Tribute to Mom

It’s hard to say in a few sentences all that Mom meant to me, but I’ll try.  My tribute would include the months on needlepoint for weddings and births, the hours of travel to see her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren compete in sports.  A tribute would include the ‘care packages’ methodically wrapped to withstand the distance traveled home.  A tribute would include applesauce, jelly, chili, vegetable soup, egg salad, pickled beets, pickled eggs and other goodies that made the trip home a little less wearisome.  A tribute should include the times of just sitting in the kitchen ‘catching up’ on our lives.  A tribute would include the hours of service to her husband, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.  

However, one story illustrates Mom from my junior high years.  Bruce Brown was my best friend in the 7th and 8th grades.  Playing on the 8th grade basketball team we had many occasions when the schedule for the games left an hour or two gap between school and game time or team bus departure. If Bruce rode the school bus home, he couldn’t get back in time since his mom worked and didn’t get home in time.  That wasn’t a problem for Mom.  “Bring him home with you Dan, I’ll have something ready for you guys.”  There was always a meal for Bruce and I after school.  Usually it was something like macaroni and cheese with a vegetable and a couple of cookies, or maybe cheesy potatoes with cut-up hot dogs, but she always had something ready for us.  I don’t know how she did it, cause she worked a job, she had a meal to get ready for the rest of the family and then they would travel to the game.  But, she would be there, at the game, in the stands, keeping score her way.

How’d she do it?  I don’t know.  I never even asked her.  She was Mom.