I Know Where Love Lives

There's a house on the edge of town It's a little old, it's a little run down Full of laughter and tears and toys Crazy things only love enjoys
- Hal Ketchum

I would love to be able to describe my Mom. I can't begin to do justice to the person she was to me and how much I loved her. I had trouble even defining some of the ways she influenced me, because they are so engrained in who I am. It's too enormous. This is the best I could do....

1. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone. I probably heard this from my mother more than any of her other sayings. My mother was always laughing. I can't begin to count the number of times she would dissolve in giggles to the point tears would run down her face. She came from a family of practical jokers; teasing was good-natured, and kindly and no one ever doubted that they loved you. She was silly and fun and taught me to value friends and family who made me laugh.

2. The meaning of finesse. Mom played the card game Bridge. She belonged to several Bridge groups and even taught it at various community ed programs. I think she would have lived and breathed Bridge if she could have. I was the only one of her kids who picked up the game...sort of. But it was in learning Bridge I learned the term and the art of finesse. It's a life skill everyone should know.

3. A love of games. She was up for playing anything - board games, card games. word games, anything. She taught me to both play for the fun of it, and probably honed my competitive side as well.

4. How to listen. My mother was born deaf and so had to learn to lip-read. To "hear" what people were saying, she had to stop what she was doing, look at them, and give them her undivided attention. That's a far different and deeper form of listening than we give most people in this busy world of ours.

5. To sew, knit, and crochet. I was in 4th grade when she taught me to use her sewing machine. And not much older when I learned to cook. My mother didn't learn these things until she was in college, majoring in Home Economics. She grew up with a maid in the house and never had to do these things. She said she didn't want her daughters to "waste" their college education on these things. I'm sad that she felt she wasted her college years, but proud at what my siblings and I have done with our education.

6. If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed will come to the mountain. She taught me I wasn't the center of the universe. The world wasn't going to come to my doorstep. If I wanted something, I'd better go after it. Learn how to meet other people on their terms when it's necessary.

7. The dinner hour. She would lament that we kids would finish our meal and want to be off and doing things after 20 minutes; that the dinner hour wasn't lasting an hour. But what was important was that we always sat down together as a family. Every night. We talked about our day, knew what was going on in each others' lives, and learned the art of conversation.

8. An appetite for reading. Probably because she didn't get information from audio sources as readily as others, she was a voracious reader. And through watching her read, and being read to, I grew up with the notion that reading was important. And have passed that on to my children.

9. Traditions. My mother was big on the little things that made up traditions from year to year. Like reading us "The Night Before Christmas" every Dec 24th when we were little, or always bringing "camping cake" when we went to the dome. It gave us a sense of things to look forward to and find myself doing the same for my girls.

10. How to make each of her children feel completely loved. I always felt like Susie was her favorite - I think we all did. But I never felt any the less loved because of it.  I always felt her love for me was so complete and so total. I only hope that I will be remembered by my children like my siblings and I remember her.

I know where love lives
She's sitting on the back step in the evening air
With sea green eyes and her chestnut hair
You keep your mansions of gold, buddy, I don't care
Cause I know where love lives