With Mother’s Day coming this weekend, I’ve been thinking a lot about mothers.

Mine wasn’t around very long for me.  She was sick from the time I was a baby and by the time I was seven she had succumbed  to the cancer that desimated her.  Then,  my dad took over as both dad and mom.  I remember little about her, but my family talked of her sense of humor, her beautiful compassionate heart and her love for and joy of children.

My grandmother was my next mother, at 76 years old she took over helping my father raise my two older brothers and me.  She was on her third litter of children to raise, having raised her own children, then my aunt’s kids and now dad’s three.  If you are the third group of kids to be raised by one woman, you might as well know…there is nothing you can get away with,  no new way you can get in trouble that she hasn’t already anticipated and you have no excuse to be voiced that she hasn’t been practiced in answering!  She was an incredible woman who read the Bible from cover to cover more times than I can count, but she never once used it to bully us into something.  She didn’t need to yell or threaten because we saw her saw an outhouse in half with a hand saw  so the dog could have a dog house at age 78!  So, we knew she had the strength and energy to take you on so…you did what you were told the first time it was told to you! I learned so much about strength, love and determination from her!

Then, it was time for me to be mother.  Sarah Beth came along when I was 26 and Megan three years later.  They taught me that mothers have to raise each child differently from the others because they are individual in all respects!  I learned the meaning of the word stubborn and bullheaded from my younger daughter, although admittedly I should have learned it from Grandma because she called me that often enough when I was growing up! I guess Meggie gets it from me!  The girls became children of a single mom when they were 9 and 12 and from that moment on we realized that Mom was an inadequate substitute for Dad AND Mom.  However,  they knew I would always do my utmost to provide for them, spend time with them, be graceful with them and to support them! And I’m still trying to be that kind of mom.

Now, I watch my girls as mothers and I’m so blessed to see the women they’ve become.  While Sarah Beth hasn’t birthed children YET, she is a loving and extremely good teacher.  She refers to her kids in her class as “MY kids” and sometimes…”one of my babies”.  To see and hear how she loves on them, instructs them and disciplines them…I get to smile because even she says that ” Mom, I heard your voice and your sayings come out of my mouth today! It was scarey!”

Megan has a four year old son and loves her two older 19 and 22 year old “gift with purchase” step daughters.  Watching Meg become the mother that she is I often think to myself she is a lot like what I think my mother must have been like.  Even without having known her, Meggie has the love, sense of humor and compassion people used to say mommy had.

As we face another Mother’s Day I realize that I had more than one mother…my mom and then my grandmother too.  How blessed is that!? My daughters may not have had the best mom but they had one that loved them as best she could possibly!  My girls have become the kind of mothers that will impact children and generations with their caring!  I’m thinking that’s a pretty amazing legacy from Grandmother to mother to me to my girls and now to theirs.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Susan O