My Mother Clothed Me

I'm sure it's happening all over the blogosphere, but that doesn't matter to me. Many of us are writing about our mothers. Mom...was born in Macon, Georgia. I really didn't know or understand that she was southern until I was older...I just knew that Macon seemed such a new and different places than the little communities in Southern Indiana where I was growing up. And it was pretty different from Dad's Minnesota farm home. The other thing, and I didn't know why I didn't think it was strange, was that there was only grandma. I don't remember ever asking where grandpa was. It wasn't until I was in high school, I think, that I found out that mom's dad had died when she was five years old (oh, I'm sure I heard it before but it didn't matter). Mom and grandma survived by grandma's hands. Grandma made and fixed clothes and her daughter would sit right next to her on the sewing bench and grandma would work and sing "I'm only a bird in a gilded cage." A sad song, but also a defiant song, as I discovered when I looked at the words later.

Mom learned well. She made all our clothes. I didn't know that you could buy clothes in a store. When I was in college she came to visit and said "let's go out to the store and buy you a suit." I was confused...I didn't think you could buy a suit...I thought all suits were homemade.

She made our clothes from necessity. Dad's salary at small rural congregations didn't go far. I can remember when we lived in French Lick finding mom crying (I was around 6 years old) and finding out that she was crying because she couldn't afford shoes for us (the man who owned the shoe factory down the street gave us some, until the place burned down shortly before we moved away).

Mom was fiery and passionate. As calm as Dad seemed to me, Mom seemed to be a whirlwind. She would express her emotions, her happiness or unhappiness without thinking about it twice. You always knew where you stood with her. I've always thought that of my brothers and sister I'm the most like her. The feelings she seemed to have about things were the things I felt. Which was why we were probably most often at loggerheads. She let people get under her skin. I let people get under my skin. I think that as both of us grew older we both learned to handle that a little better (Thank God).

Mom was very entrepreneurial. She created her own business -- Lil's Heddles and Treddles. She wove clothing and tapestries on looms that Dad built. She made candles from beeswax. She did needlepoint. Later she would become a real estate agent and that seemed to fit her very well.

About four years before she died Mom was diagnosed with cancer. It was quite a shock to all of us. And I would say that over those last four years I grew closer to her than I had the previous forty. We got along better -- the old arguments didn't seem to matter nearly as much anymore. She was still herself. In fact, one of the coolest things that happened is that she decided she was going to go ahead and do all the things she had always wanted to do, but had put off. She wanted to see giraffes in their natural habitat. Dad was going to be taking a trip to Malawi for work and invited her along...but when she found out that there weren't giraffes around there she backed away from the trip and found one that would take her to the Serengeti. She and dad made that trip and boy did she love it. She wanted to see the Great Wall of China -- so she and Dad took a cruise that took them to China and Vietnam. Less than a year before she died she took her three sons and our families on a cruise of the Caribbean. She had wanted to take us to Alaska, but she (wisely) thought that most of the grandchildren would be too young to really enjoy Alaska and that a warm climate would be much better. Every night we sat together for several hours for a meal together. The gospel text for Sunday was from John and talked about Jesus encouraging the disciples to "abide with me." At those meals we were abiding with one another.

The last few months of her life had both highs and lows. Dad officially retired and I surprised him by showing up at his going away bash. He and Mom and I went out to lunch and she seemed to be doing great (that's what the picture is from at the top). In November she went into the hospital for a week or so it seemed, so Jordan and I drove down to see how she was doing and found her weak but home. One of the last pictures I have of her was of Jordan and her and me (one of the few times she allowed the wig to be off for a photo -- with her radiation caused bald head).

On that trip she and I sat in front of the fireplace and as she poked at the logs she said to me that she was running out of options. She had talked about it with her Sunday School class and one of the members had told her not to be discouraged that there was always hope. Mom turned to me and spread her arms wide and asked "what more can I do?" I can't tell you what a gift that was to see her after these years of showing all this strength to see for a moment, her vulnerability.

She was one tough woman. She didn't suffer fools gladly. She always spoke her mind. She had passion. She could get mad. She could hold a grudge. She could laugh herself silly. She could play the piano. She could knit. She could cook (though she really didn't like to). She had opinions about everything.

Yes, my mother clothed me.