Cutting Wood

 HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

This Mother's Day got me to thinking about the fact that I am the same age as my mom was when she passed away. My mom and I had a tumultuous relationship. As Richter says, it was a love / hate relationship. I am nothing like my mother yet I am just like her. I understand her more now than I did in my younger days. I guess that is to be expected. Looking back, my mother probably had more courage than most, but if not actual courage, at least more bravado. She was a woman who would tell it like it was. Not necessarily nice, but most times kind. I think our society believes nice and kind are interchangeable, whereas I see being nice as a blurry, sugarcoated version of the truth. So sugarcoated, in fact, that sometimes you cannot find the truth. Kind is unabashed, clear coated honesty that may be very harsh to hear, but in the long run, better for you to know than not know.

One memory that I recently had an “aha” moment about was when I was 8 years old. We were Jehovah's Witnesses at the time. My mom fell in love with her boss and asked my dad for a divorce so she could marry him. I'm not sure how it all came out into the open, etc., but as a Jehovah's Witness, my mother was to be disfellowshipped. Like I said, I don't know all that happened in the background leading up to this, but at a service at the Kingdom Hall one evening, they notified the congregation what my mother had done and advised that she was not repentant and that she would be disfellowshipped. All while announcing this, they made my mom stand at her seat with her future ex-husband (my dad) and her daughters sitting by her side as they delivered their pronouncement upon her! Folks, that is courage! Right or wrong, you know that had to take courage for her to stand there and take that when she could have just as easily stayed home and never returned. I hope if called, for whatever reason, to stand and take pronouncement upon my soul, that I too have the courage to do so – hopefully though for a much loftier cause. Ha! Ha!

One similarity my mom and I had was our constant search for the truth, for God, for an explanation of this life. She went down many religious paths trying to gain understanding. I hope she found what she had been looking for, but most of all I hope God knew her heart and I get to see her in heaven one day. Even though I believe so much of her searching was in the wrong direction, every time she was chastised for her various dalliances with cults and religions, she would always pronounce “God knows whats in my heart, not you!” Mom, I totally get now what you meant by that. As Richter says, “don't let your religion get in the way of your Christianity.”

My mom and I butted heads from the time I was little. My two older sisters were very loving and obedient and I was, well, in a word – rebellious. A common conversation between us was – “Tamara, why can't you be good” and my constant answers was, “but I try to be good.” I think sometimes neither one of us could look past who we thought each other really were (deep, huh?) Anyway, as we both got older, we chaffed each other less. I believe I disappointed her in so many ways, but like her, I had to follow my heart. BUT, the day Casey was born, I think she finally saw me in a different light and I finally felt I had done something right! Gosh, she loved my boys!

Like I always say, my circle is small, so not many of you knew my mom, Shirley. But if you had known her, you would know how funny she could be, she loved to sing, she made friends easily, she never knew a stranger, she could not tell a joke to save her life, and oh how she loved to give gifts – she would literally shop for days trying to find that one special gift for you. (When it came to us girls it had to be all even stevens – I can't tell you how many things she would buy for the three of us that were the exact same thing but only in different colors. I still laugh about it.) And my mother was known far and wide for her meticulous housekeeping – for which to this day I can never compete – I am my father's daughter!

I suppose I write all this to ease some nagging ache in my heart and to say, Mom, I miss you. I understand so many things now that I could have never understood in my youth, and I am sorry for my youthful angst, and my “I have to do it my way attitutde – societal norms be damned!” And yes, I still try to be good, but it's hard! But God knows my heart and I will leave it up to Him, and only Him, to be the judge of it. ~ Love, your daughter – Momma Richter xoxo