A Treasured Life

Well growing up I never realized how lucky I was to have a mom to teach me the value of work. When she lost her mother at the young age of 16 it truly devastated her. She was the baby of the family, the only one living at home, and she was momma's little girl. She always told us how hard it was on her. She didn't know how to take of herself and now she was thrown into that role along with taking care of the house, cleaning, cooking, and managing the household checkbook.
The theme of our growing up was "do it yourself or die trying." My mom could do anything herself, if that meant fixing a plumbing leak, remodeling a bathroom, building a house, sewing a quilt, growing a garden, or making homemade bread and homecooked meals. I remember my friends were always in amazement of what a great cook my mom was. She was a straight from scratch cook. We NEVER ate a frozen meal while I was growing up or anything except mac and cheese from a box.
But not only that, while finances were always tight in our family growing up, she found a way to earn a little money here or there making cabbage patch dolls, strawberry shortcake dolls, pound puppies, doll clothing, etc. to sell so that we could have extra money for Christmas gifts. Many of our toys were homemade. She made big clipboards for us to draw and paint on that were shaped and painted like a big strawberry, or a huge teepee made out of denim and alluminum poles. She made a big dollhouse for my sisters and I, she made the dolls of course too, and also sewed quite a bit of our clothes as well.
She taught us to work hard in the garden too. We had a HUGE 1/2 acre garden plot, with raspberries all along the back of it, with a big strawberry patch, and a orchard on another 1/4 acre along the side. We were very busy to say the least. I remember my mom teaching me how to soak the seeds, and plant them in the rows. Which plants were vegetables and which were weeds, and how to irrigate the rows in long ditches. She taught us how to suck the nectar from honeysuckle, and peel rhubarb and dip it in sugar. We learned to shuck wheelbarrows and wheelbarrows full of corn, boil it, and cut it off the cobs for the freezer, we snapped and canned beans, made jams and jellies, and stuffed zuchinni into every imaginable recipe including apple pie.
We rarely ever had money for candy, and if we did we had to pedal on our bike to the Safeway or Maverick. We ate out about once a year for our big birthday dinner. We could choose anywhere we wanted to go which was usually Sizzler. Because to us that seemed sooo fancy. I mean they had shrimp, and all you could eat shrimp what could be more fancy?
As I got older, I resented being poor a little more, and felt like it was unfair that I had to work for my own school clothes and spending money. No 14 year old really understands the life lesson being learned there. Until I quit to take care of Cai when he was 6 mos. old I had literally never been "unemployed" a day in my life since I was 14 years old. It took it's toll in some ways, I saw my friends do more extracurricular activities, and watched their parents hand them money for extra stuff, and buy them name brand clothes. But now I am so grateful that I learned how to take care of myself, and learn the value of work.
I learned how to fix things and build stuff from watching my mom, I knew how to cook and I knew how to work hard and earn enough money so that when I went off to college I could do it all on my own. Without spending a dime of my parents money (aside from my car insurance.) It wasn't easy by a long shot, but I did it. I guess my mom had the tough love philosophy, which doesn't always sit well during those moments of learning and trial, but looking back I can see how much stronger I am as a result.
Not everything was hard work growing up, we had plenty of fun too. My friends used to tell me how "cool" my Mom was, because she would let us play and have sleepovers more than their parents did. But mostly she was just fun to hang out with. We would goof around and laugh and laugh till our sides hurt. We would stay up late and we would watch Saturday Night Live until my dad would come down stairs and make her go up to bed. We spent a lot of time talking and philosiphizing about life and the gospel. My Mom was such a good example of living the gospel. She lived the things she taught, and wasn't showy about it. She didn't flaunt moral superiority in your face, or stand on the street corners and preach and pray, she just lived it and we felt her love of it just by being around her. We lived it too because we learned to love it like she did. She was adamant about never judging others. She always used to say that "you should never judge a person for what they have done, because you never know how many of their mistakes would have been yours too if you had, been given the same opportunities to make them." My Mom wasn't perfect as no parent is, but she loved us and defended us fiercely. I remember in fact when a neighbor was spreading false stories about me and a car accident I had been in, she stomped right down to his house and had the poor man in tears by the time she was done with him. She wasn't afraid to stand up for herself or her kids if she felt she wasn't getting a fair shake, which was embarrassing sometimes, but also comforting that she cared that much.
Coming home to visit from college was so much fun. We would try to get everyone together as often as possible, and if one of us was going to my parents house, it wasn't long before all of us were up there. We would tie quilts and goof around, watch movies, make yummy treats, and try new recipes, and we would talk and play games until 2 a.m. She loved going shopping with her girls and we all would usually spend too much money buying stuff we talked each other into buying.
As a grandma she was every bit as committed to giving them homemade gifts. She was not a fan of toys and worldly things, but she always had them stocked with quilts, books about Christ, family night kits, Songbooks, and pillowcases and in a pinch grandma could whip up a skirt, swimming suit, or pair of pajamas from her fabric closet in about 10 minutes flat. She made the grandkids toy boxes, and tents, and tooks them for long walks down to the beach or up in the mountains to pick chokecherries, or just admire nature. She took thousands of pictures of them playing in the sand at the beach, sledding down their hills, or playing up in the mountains behind their house. She loved getting the grandkids together at her house.
Things will never be the same, all we have are the memories. I just hope that I can teach my children even half the valuable lessons I learned from her, and feel blessed that I was able to have her a part of my life for as long as I did. She knew the pain of growing up without a mom, and as difficult as it was on her, she never wanted us to feel so abandoned. She raised us to be independent, perhaps because she knew deep down there would come a time when we needed to be.