Voices: Remembering my mom this Mother’s Day

When I was a baby in 1953, the pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock was king. He taught babies should cry through the night until they learn to go to sleep independently. Parents were not to hold and cuddle their babies, as is done today.

I felt both loved and lonely as a young child. My parents had marriage problems and later divorced. So, there was tension, arguing and complaining in the home. I was a very anxious small person, not at all secure emotionally.

I got past these early problems with my mom and came to love and forgive everything in those early years. Our relationship had an amazingly happy ending.

When things started to change

It started in the Baptist Student Union, when I began to walk closely with the Lord and seek the things of God even more than my college studies. I read many Christian authors of the day and went to the “Bill Gothard Institute for Basic Youth Conflicts,” even though it was highly fundamentalist.

We in the University of Texas at Arlington BSU went on a bus to Fort Worth together and sat in a huge convention center to learn the importance of parents and the headship of Christ, then the father, then the mother. We learned the value of authority and the “umbrella of protection” parents offer.

God’s plan in giving my specific mom and dad was no accident. He would build on the foundation of our family, even with divorce. He would redeem and restore all, I gathered and hoped.

New relationships

When my mom and dad remarried to other people, I saw their happiness. That made me happy. Having two families, could be two times the fun—not always, but sometimes. If I looked for good times and love, they were there.

My attitude toward change in the family was very important, as was flexibility in accepting new personalities and new stepsiblings.

By this time, I was married, and Mom and I had a lot in common. We were homemakers and church workers. I was a minister’s wife; she was a deacon’s wife. We focused on our homes, and Mom became the world’s best grandmother.

She would come to our town and stop at Walmart before coming to my house. When she arrived, her trunk was filled with church dresses, socks and tights for her delighted granddaughter. This went on for years.

Mom and I antiqued together. Today, I don’t know what to do with all the items we bought. We laughed together and truly got to know one another as people. We could talk about anything and enjoy lunch at any café in town. She became my best friend.

A hard call

One day, when my daughter was still quite young, I got a phone call: “Ruthie, I need you to be a very big girl,” Mom said. “I have leukemia, but the doctor says there is a lot we can do.”

If I was a “very big girl,” it was an act. My world went dark for a while. I truly was afraid. And stressed because I lived an eight-hour drive from her.

Mother fought bravely, taking oral chemo for almost nine years. She lost her energy and ability to travel, and her husband developed heart failure. So, change came again to our family.

In time, God called my husband Joe to a church near Dallas, so we could be close to our parents. God’s timing was perfect. We never could have planned a ministry change that went so smoothly and allowed me to be with my mom. I am still in awe in of his work and tender care.

Remembering Mom

When mother died, I had gone to Walgreen’s to get some supplies. She passed away right before I reentered her room.

The chaplain was there, and he said, “She has finished her journey.”

All I could think of to say was: “We were ready. She got ready a long time ago.”

Six months later, my stepfather died, and he and Mom were reunited. Joe did both their funerals. How? I don’t know. I was not strong at that time, feeling like I was in a bad dream, yet knowing God was sovereign over all and sufficient in my life.

In time, God brings together all the threads of life—the people, the memories, the victories and hurt. Sometimes, there is a lot of hurt. Often, life has been very unfair. God understands that.

Maybe he takes the threads and weaves a tapestry—a picture that sums up the meaning of our one special life and purpose.

On my tapestry, there must be a beautiful picture of the mother God gave me. I would want that. She fills my heart on Mother’s Day with the warmest memories.

Ruth Cook is a longtime Texas Baptist. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.