Moms

Journal for Christa—(from January 25, 2009)

My mom used to call me every week. All the biblical training aside, I think my best teacher on parenting was, and probably still is, my mother. My mom is just an ordinary lady, living on a farm in southern Illinois.

Oh, how I dreaded telling her I was pregnant with Mel, and Chris not even a year old. No telling what she said to my dad when she got off the phone, but she’s always had the attitude of taking life as it comes. And she definitely was then, having just finished chemo.

So, on the first anniversary of her cancer surgery, she was dressing Joy for kindergarten in a green dress she’d brought with her. She’d come to take care of us: Mel had just been born. My mom came with every baby. That’s how she spent her vacation days from work. Dad would bring her down and come back for her in a week.

Once when Jay told me I should just make a schedule in order to get everything done, she told me in a nice, tactful way that with four small children that really just wouldn’t work and that there were some things men just didn’t understand.

It seems strange now to fill that role with the girls. I hope I do it as well as she does. During the dark days when Mel was dealing with the imminence of Angie’s death, I told her, “If you can’t get a hold of me, call Grandma. That’s who I always call.”