My mother gave me life, she taught me how to be creative while claiming she was not. She gave me a love of thunderstorms even though she feared them the most.
My mother showed me how to be a great April Fools baby as I learned from the multiple tricks she played on me how to get her back. She took the time to walk in the puddles and run through the sprinklers with me. She learned to swim the dog paddle with a grimace on her face just to prove she was up for adventure.
My mother could run circles around me and was an accomplished seamstress, gardener, farmer, professional teacher, business owner and cook. She clothed us with sewn outfits ranging from her suits, the baby clothes to our formal dresses and gowns. She fed us with foods grown in the garden, cooked elaborate dinners for friends and family all the while working on the farm, teaching school or ceramic classes in her home or at her shop in town.
There were never less then four kinds of cookies or squares in the freezer and on Saturday our house smelled of freshly waxed floors, the aroma of pot roast cooking on the stove and fresh buns baking in the oven.
My Mother graduated high school at the age of 16 and finished teacher’s collage at the age of 18 years and immediately was teaching grades 1 to 12 in a one-room schoolhouse. After marrying my Dad, she continued to teach periodically sometimes full time sometimes part time. She loved being an educator and loved working with children. My Mom and Dad had a great love affair. They never parted without a kiss. They worked together planting trees others believed they would never enjoy in their lifetime and made a home comfortable to raise their three children. They planted the garden together, grew fruit trees, had a dairy farm, beef farm, grain farm with Mom driving combine for the harvest.
Their time being active outdoors and enjoying all the seasons was interrupted when Dad became ill. They spent so many days and hours at the doctors and in the hospital and their lives changed drastically. Many times Mom felt like she could not go on, but Mom is the true example of a brave person. Not someone without fear, but someone who continued to strive on in spite of the fear. My mother had bible verses of encouragement and promises from God for every pain, every sorrow, every celebration and just daily life. She would sing all the time, as we shopped in the mall, drove in the car or worked together. As children we were awakened by her voice singing “good morning good morning its time to rise and shine.” Or on Sundays by a chorus she sang “Sunday school Sunday school good little girls go to Sunday school” or “Good morning merry sunshine”.
Mom and I worked together, when I was young she taught me how to cook, sew and plant a garden and then with Dad being sick it started with working on the farm together and later on teaching ceramics at the shop in town and in Rheinland school. It was during this time that she was diagnosed with Parkinsons. It became a struggle for her to sign her name and to write her notes on the blackboard. Medication helped at the early stages of this terrible disease, but ultimately it took over her life and changed the course of her life. Parkinsons brought dementia and decreased conversation and finally the nursing home care.
We shared so many special times together even after I moved to the states. Mom and Dad always loved to travel and take drives together. We had camped and explored much of Canada and the States as a family. We always talked even when we saw each other on a daily basis, there was always so much to talk about. We shared a special bond a mother and her oldest child. She was the greatest Mother and Grandmother to my children and I miss her….
