Mother’s Day! Every year I think about what I would have turned out like if I hadn’t been raised by my mother, and I shudder to think what it could have been like without her.

My mom, born “Thelma Jean Taylor” in Horton Michigan on July 31 1922 was one of three children in that family. She married my dad while World War II was going on, and she had that unique experience that a fair number of young women experienced back then. She looked out her window to see an Army Air Force Officer walking up to her door with a telegram. She opened the door and said “This is about Bruce (my Dad) isn’t it? He must have seen the fear on her face, because the first thing the officer said was, “Yes, but he’s going to be fine.”

When I was almost ten years old, I got up early one Sunday morning to find Air Force Officers and chaplains in our living room, and the news was about my Dad again, only this time he wasn’t going to be o.k., and we weren’t ever going to see him alive again.

Mom, with three young children, in a small Kansas town which was a 1000 miles from her home, decided to raise us there.  She would always say, “I’ll do all I can for you, and if I can’t help you, I’ll find someone who can!” And she did. She eventually remarried and had two more children by that marriage.

I’ve watched Mom reel from the death of her second husband, and struggle with grief as two of my sisters died. Through it all, though she often succumbed briefly to grief and depression, she maintained that indomitable spirit.  I remember hearing her say, “What else can you do? You have to go on–even if you wanted to quit, there’s no place to go to where they’ll accept your resignation!”

My mom still lives in that little Kansas town, and everyone there knows her. She lives by herself at 86 years old, and she goes to the local YMCA every day but Sunday to swim. She’d go on Sundays too but they’re closed, plus that’s her day to go to Wal Mart and shop and yak with all her friends.

She’s a member of what one author called “the greatest generation” and they never complained, and they never quit on you.  “That’s just how we were raised,” she said. 

And when I find myself doing something good, something that I honestly didn’t want to do but did because someone needed me to do it, that’s often what I say, too: “That’s just how I was raised.” Thanks, Mom! You’re the best!