I've written quite a bit about Mom in other posts. The stories from other posts are probably the best way to describe her. But, to put a little more down in the books, we'll see where this goes.
Mom could be well described as a mother hen. A mother hen watches over her little chicks. She teaches them how to gather food, she teaches them where to sleep at night, she shows them where safety is. A mother hen also protects her little chicks, whether it be clucking up a storm to scare something away, or gathering up her chicks and getting them to safety. A mother hen stands between her chicks and anything that could harm them.
This goes off the subject a little bit, but Kelly told a story the other night to our friends that reminded me of Mom. She had some friends that had a Weimaraner dog. It was the most playful fun dog to have around, if the dog knew who you were. Anytime anyone came around that the dog didn't know, it could be the scariest animal around. If Kelly would go over to this friends house to play the dog would always be at the door when she arrived. The dog would let her in without any problem. However, if Kelly brought over a friend or someone the dog didn't know, the dog would actually get in the way and prevent the person from coming into the house, until the dog was told it was ok. Other times if Kelly and the other kids were playing in the front yard or at a park and the dog was there, it would be very playful with the kids. If anyone would walk by the house, even just walking down the sidewalk or on the other side of the road, the dog would put itself between the person and the kids. I guess that actually makes Mom more like a watchdog than a mother hen.
It was Mom's sole purpose to raise up kids that were good productive people. Whether that was to avoid embarrassment from what we might say or do, or because she wanted kids that could take care of her and Dad when they got old is still up in the air. This started at the home with teaching us how to work. I wrote this talk a few weeks ago for Mother's Day in sacrament meeting. I think it describes Mom and her mom well.
Mother’s Day Talk – May 13, 2012
Influence of a Righteous Woman – M. Russell Ballard; April
2012 General Conference
“Sisters, we, your brethren, cannot do what you were
divinely designated to do from before the foundation of the world. We may try, but we cannot even hope to
replicate your unique gifts. There
is nothing in this world as personal, as nurturing, or as life changing as the
influence of a righteous woman.”
Today, I want to tell you about how the influence of some
righteous women has changed my life.
My mother was born 50 some odd years ago in a small farming
suburb of Ogden, Utah – Wilson. He
dad was some kind of a property developer. He managed some mobile home parks and worked with quite a
few other people to develop properties.
His wife, my grandma Hill was in her forties when they got married. She was very independent lady.
Grandma grew up in an even more rural suburb of Logan –
Millville, Utah. She was a farm
girl and grew up living a frugal farm life through the depression. As a kid, it was fun to go back to the
area she grew up to visit our cousins that were super-country folk. They were straight out of the movies it
seemed. They spoke with a drawl
had crazy teeth and were what I assumed was real life redneck, but hard-working
farmers. I felt like a total city
slicker going to visit the – myself growing up in the booming metropolis of
Roy, Utah.
Grandma Hill, just like some of the animals she probably had
on her farm growing up, was a stubborn lady. She had her ways and that was how things were done. As non of my mother’s siblings were
around when I was growing up, we got to spend a lot of time over at grandma’s
house helping out. She lived on
quite a few acres of farmland. She
had sheep, at least an acre of garden, probably close to that of grass, and when
shoveling snow it felt like ten times that much in pavement to shovel. My grandpa died when I was really young
and my grandma decided to stay in the huge house they had built on that huge
piece of property. There was
plenty of work to do. The perks of
this as a boy were limited, but I did get to learn to drive the tractor when I
was far too young to even reach the pedals.
Grandma to me was a little odd. She at weird things like overly boiled spinach with lemon
juice on it for flavor, super-pickled beets, and oatmeal with crunchy husks and
raisins. Grandma’s house smelled
funny. She held on to everything
and had little piles and stashes around her house that she would “putter
around” through which meant move from place-to-place.
Grandma went to the temple multiple times each week. Not only was she a temple worker, she
went to the temple to do her own family history work on top of it. To prepare for her visits, she spent
multiple hours each week doing camily history work. Now that I understand what that is, I imagine her rail
little body sitting ina chair pouring through microfilms with her failing
eyesight and weak little hands.
Grandma served faithfully as a visiting teacher. I remember her talking about
going to take care of the “poor old sisters in her ward that needed some help”
wondering to myself how someone as old as her that needed so much help herself
could provide anyone any help.
I know my grandma had a testimony of the Savior and of His
restored gospel found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yes, she had a messy house. Yes, I think she was really quirky. Yes, she did things a weird way. But, I know she loved the Lord and she
followed Him. She lived her quirky
life in a way that I never doubted it.
In fact, to this day, I wonder how personal of an experience she had
with our Savior. Because of her,
my testimony in our Savior grew – and I have learned that someone could have a
personal relationship with Him.
My mother, the product of this quirky woman, has quite a few
quirks herself. I’m sure these are
all a product of her upbringing.
Mom grew up on the huge farm I mentioned with the sheep,
huge garden and huge lawn to mow.
She also grew up with a mother that still remembered the depression and
canned like she had to feed an army for years. This made it normal for my mom to want a huge garden at her
own home with a huge fruit room to store it all after it was put up and
preserved. Mom was a canning
champion. And she had a fleet of
children to help her with the labor.
All summer long, after scripture reading at 6:00 a.m., we’d head out to
the garden to weed, water, or pick the rows and rows of beans, peas, corn,
tomatoes and whatever else was back on that huge section of our yard. It was fortuitous that mom had this
inside of her. While dad had a
great job, raising five kids is no cheap endeavor and we lived quite
frugally. Mom made sure her army
of gardeners was properly fed each day and most of the meals growing up came
from the very bottles and #10 cans that we had picked out of our own garden.
I think to mostly to run away from the cluttered house that
she grew up in, my mom became affectionately referred to by her children as
“the clean freak.” We had chore
charts for every day of the week, lists of how to clean each room in the house
posted somewhere in its respective room, and a friendly competition each week
between kids to see who could score the highest on mom’s bedroom
inspection. All these things had
to be done before any type of luxury was enjoyed – like going to a friend’s
house.
Mom knew Satan was real and I think she has a great fear of
him. More a fear of what Satan
could do to her children than of him.
It actually would be quite the battle to see mom go head to head with
Satan, because she has the same bull-headed stubbornness of her mother. She won’t let anything get between her
and her children. I remember
coming home from my mission and having most of my collection of music
gone. Mom had gone through my
collection and done a cleansing to prepare for my return. There was no tolerance for things that
would pull us away from the gospel.
Mom was well aware that Satan was cunning and would use various ways to
get at her children and she would have none of it. There was also no tolerance for disrespect of her or of
anyone else for that matter. If
something ever happened than dad was called at work and that was definitely bad
news. I don’t know why we all
thought that was bad news because dad is one of the most even-kill people
you’ll ever meet in your life.
Mom was also a cheerleader. Mom did everything she could to get me to learn piano – just
like all her other kids. After all
my kicking and screaming, and 12 years of lessons, we came to an agreement
where I could quit piano lessons as soon as I passed off all of the hymns in
the hymnbook to my dad. I remember
it crushed my mom to have one of her kids drop out. It was like taking one of her dreams and stomping all over
it. But, mom kept on. I wanted to
drop out so I could pursue being a super-star runner. Taking time for piano was cramping my training. Mom, ever though I don’t think she ever
understood cross-country or track, became the biggest cheerleader a track team
has ever known.
One last story,
I remember one
race in particular that I always tell about myself - then in thinking about it,
it’s really about Mom. A lot of
people don’t run in bad weather.
But, our team ran in rain, sleet, snow, extreme cold, heat wave,
monsoon, whatever. It was a rare
occasion that workouts were changed much because of the weather. It was also a rare occasion that track
or cross-country meets were canceled because of weather. This particular event was a biggie, so
there was no way it was canceling - the City County meet. This event was always held on a
Saturday morning and included all schools in the county regardless of their
class level.
On this
particular morning, we had gotten an early cold front. We knew it was going to be cold. While warming up it was a little rainy,
but we were used to that. As we
came out to start the race, you could see your breath. We walked over to the start line in our
normal fashion. I remember this
particular morning I actually felt a little bad for the other teams. We let them into the hallways in the
school because it was so cold.
But, we had all the nice accommodations of the home team with our locker
room, bathrooms, showers, etc. As
I looked over at the starting line, there was Mom in her normal place on the
other side of the chain link fence.
She was cheerleading as usual, yelling some words of encouragement that
I couldn’t really make out.
The gun went off
and we took off running. It was
just a normal race, but really cold.
We made our first loop around the baseball field, then all hell broke
loose. The clouds cracked, it was
no longer a little rain coming down and the rain was turning more into
snow. As we kept running the
course, it just got colder and colder and it rained harder and harder. I remember coming across behind the
school starting the second lap, preparing to go down the big hill to Sandridge
Junior High School that the rain actually felt like it turned into big frozen
rocks - not hail ROCKS. After the
fact it was probably a good thing because it took my mind off the pain of
running and brought it to, “I’ve gotta get done so I can get out of this
storm!” It was nuts. Just then I looked up and Mom was still
in her spot number two, at the top of the hill just beyond the fence. She was screaming her guts out and
clapping like no other just like it was any other race.
The storm didn’t
let up. I finished the last lap
and coming up the hill before dropping into the stadium. Mom was still there screaming and
cheering. I finished the race. I think I actually did pretty good and
got some made up award for the freshmen participating in the race. But, all that aside all I remember from
that race was the weather and it was crazy. Mom was there.
I don’t know if
Mom understood Cross-Country. I
don’t know if she even cared. But,
she cared about me and she was there to support me. I knew that Mom loved me and was there to help me pursue my
dreams. She was there at every
race that I can remember rain, shine or everything the heavens had to offer on
a crappy day.
Mom wasn’t perfect.
In fact, as a kid I really had a hard time with her and the way she ran
her household. But, I knew she
loved me. I knew when I had a bad
day I could come home and someone would be there for me to talk with me. I didn’t take advantage of the talking
too much, but I did absorb the love and peace that my mom created in our
home. I know mom got frustrated
quite a bit. I also know that I
caused quite a bit of that frustration.
Mom wanted to be the perfect mom with the perfect kids. But, she wasn’t perfect.
We all want to be better in some way. It is deeply rooted inside of us to
become like our Heavenly Father.
We will make it – eventually.
That is the key. The Kodak
moments we often refer to and see depicted around us are just that, Kodak
moments. The reason they are so
cool is because they don’t happen all day every day. They are what we all want, what we shoot for, the
ideal. We all have them every once
in a while. There are so many
other moments in between that aren’t captured on film though. Brothers and Sisters, we can make it if
we rely on Him like I know my mother and grandmother did and do.
Rely on Him
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, April 1997 General Conference
“Rely on Him.
Rely on Him heavily. Rely
on Him forever. And ‘press forward
with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope.’ You are doing God’s work. You are doing it wonderfully well. He is blessing you and He will bless
you even – no especially – when your days and your nights may be the most
challenging. Like the woman who
anonymously, meekly, perhaps even with a little hesitation and embarrassment,
fought her way through the crowd just to touch the hem of the Master’s garment, so Christ will
say to those who worry and wonder and sometimes weep over their responsibility,
‘be of good comfort, they faith hath made thee whole.’”
Brothers and Sisters little by little we will make it. We aren’t perfect. That’s not the plan. The plan is to do the best we can and
have our Savior make up the rest for us, and we’ll make it – eventually. May God bless us all in our
pursuit. I love you.
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