Blue Star Chronicles

This is a photo of my mother and me. I’m the topless one in the cool sunglasses.

My Daddy liked taking pictures of my mother. There are tons of them. You might can see why he liked photographing her.

But what anyone who knows her knows, is that she’s more than a pretty face.

She raised 7 children, worked outside the home part of that time and was a real partner and help-mate to her husband.

My father was more in the forefront than my mother. He was vivacious, out-going, funny, and passionate. He was the kind of person that no one could be in the same room with him and not know he was there. She was more reserved, quieter and stayed busy taking care of the details while he came up with the grand plans.

Daddy took us rafting and camping and all sorts of fun things. One time he bought a parachute at a Army-Navy Surplus Store and put it up in the back yard like a tent. We worked on putting that parachute up for what seemed like hours and hours. When we finally got it up we played in it for a long time. It was huge.

He got ideas like that and followed through on them. He was a lot of fun.

Mama cooked meals, cleaned house and made sure we helped. She made sure we did our home work and got our baths. She lined all us girls up and gave us all perms. She would buy one dress pattern and make a dress for myself and my two older sisters out of the same pattern. One dress the size of the pattern in blue, one a little larger in yellow and one smaller than the pattern in pink for me.

I remember being invited to a dance at school when I was in about the 9th or 10th grade. I don’t remember why I didn’t tell my parents or why I didn’t get anything to wear. But I do remember that the day before the dance I was in tears because I didn’t have anything to wear.

My mother started sewing. She stayed up all night and by the next evening I had a lovely outfit to wear to the dance. I took that totally for granted, until I had a daughter of my own and started getting a glimpse of what that is like.

My Daddy met my date, he never let me go out with a guy till he’d met him. He was jovial and fun. Mother was exhausted from sewing all night.

My Mother put aside her own ambitions to take care of her two young children while my father fought in World War II. She then helped put my father through school. She continued raising the family and assisting my father with his career.

For as long as I can remember, my Mother took college classes. One here and there. When she was 65 years old she graduated college. When she was 68 she earned her Master’s Degree. She started a career and moved on her own to a new town where she excelled until her mandatory retirement a couple of years later.

Mother, for whatever it’s worth, I understand your role in our lives much better now than I did when I was younger. I play a similar role in my family now.

Of all the people in my life, I admire my Mother the most. She has a quiet strength that I can only hope to be able to live up to in some way.

It would take pages for me to write about the things my Mother does to make the lives of other people more comfortable. She doesn’t say much about that, she doesn’t like to draw attention to herself. She just quietly goes about her business and rarely, if ever, asks for anything for herself.

When I was in high school, many of my friends used to tell me they wished their parents were like mine. I thought they were crazy. Who would want parents like mine? My parents were strict, I never could get away with anything, and they came down on me hard when I messed up (which was fairly often). I couldn’t manipulate my parents, they’d been there done that and wouldn’t give an inch. Not an inch! They didn’t care how dramatic I got, they didn’t care if I screamed that I hated them.

I’d watch my friends get away with things, manipulate or wear their parents down. I thought it was cool to go to one of their houses cause no one was really paying attention to what they were doing.

I understand now why they wanted parents like mine.

When I was about 24 or 25 I went to the funeral of a relative in the town my Mother grew up in. I had my hair pulled back and wore a kind of old-fashioned kind of dress that day.

Two older women came up behind me and acted all excited to see me. I didn’t have any idea who they were. They said, ‘Ruth! You haven’t changed a bit in all these years!’. I told them I wasn’t Ruth, I was her daughter. They looked disappointed, but soon found my Mother and I’m sure they all caught up.

I still remember how complimented I was for them to have mistaken me for my Mother.

I was always, ALWAYS proud of my Mother. The ability to be proud of my Mother was a real gift she gave me.

Happy Mothers Day. I love you.

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My Mother; my sister’s tribute to my Mother; another sister’s tribute to Mothers (I have a big computer literate family).

My Mother, a Train Trip, Scarlett Fever and Her Marine

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Linked to: Conservative Cat; Third World County; TMH’s Bacon Bits; Adam’s Blog; Uncooperative Blogger; Is It Just Me?; Cao’s Blog; Woman Honor Thyself; Leaning Straight Up; Basil’s Blog; MacBros Place

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