In everyone’s life there is someone who, because of some special gift, we long to be like. Maybe even coveting the gift they have that makes them so exceptional. It is for this reason that I write this today.
All that she was …
The person I speak of is … Mom … my mother, of course! She personified everything about the word Mother. Loving, caring, gentle, nurturing. She had nine children (five girls, four boys) and I, being the baby, was her favorite. So was all the other eight. She always made each of us know that her favorite was “whoever was sick or away.” None of us had any reason to doubt that. She was Mom. She always told the truth, and knew how to say everything in an acceptable way. We would often say, “Mom can tell a person their Momma STINKS,” and the person would just smile and nod … trying to figure out how they could tell their Mother that she had an offending smell … a foul odor even, simply because Mrs. Brown said so.
Yep. That’s who she was … ALWAYS told the truth. Sometimes even before it happened. “Mark my words,” she’d say. Oh NO! Not the dreaded “mark my words” statement …’Cause we knew it would happen, and we’d just wait for whatever it was she said would happen to happen. And it always did … sometimes it still does! Just the way she said it would. “One day you’ll have a daughter just like you, mark my words,” she said. Well, lo and behold, my first born! My only daughter … just like her mother, but with a twist … no, more like me with three backflips, a twist, AND a round off! “Learn to shut your mouth” … “Vonnie knows all and WILL tell it!” “Mouth almighty!” “You can’t hold water!” … You get the point. But, in my defense, I had to “tell it all” … ’cause Mom said I would! And she ALWAYS told the truth. Now I have one just like me … MAN! I should’ve seen it coming! After all, she had warned me. I should’ve paid better attention to how she handled me! ‘Cause I sure could use her methods now.
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