Mother's Day 2021 Remembering Mom

 2021 Mothers Day

 

This morning, Mother’s Day, I have been thinking of the many things my mother taught me. She taught it two ways, words and action. Mom was never short on words and well known for her ability to talk. But more importantly while far less known she was a woman of action. She taught me about being a parent, a sibling, a spouse and a friend. She taught be about choices and being responsible for them. Most of all she taught me about a Christlike love.

I was an only child until I was 9 so I felt like the center of attention all the time. I was encouraged to try new things, allowed to fail and learn, and taken on more adventures in learning that I will ever remember.

Mom was the daughter of George and Gladys Mohrbacher, born into the 1930s and the challenges the country was facing at the time. Her father would die before her sister, Shirley, was born less than two years later. She was raised by her single mom until she was in second grade when her mom remarried the man I would know as pap-pap, Willard Harter. He was better known as Les and that is what she would call him till the day he died. She loved her mom, and they would remain woven together throughout their lives.

Graduating from Beaver Falls High School in the early 1950 she took classes that would allow her to enter the workforce with office skills common of the day, typing, shorthand, phone skill and a personality that made all feel welcome. She spent time as a telephone operator and then went to work for a furniture store as their switchboard operator, receptionist and would work there until I was nine.

While working she met my dad, Charlie, a high school dropout in eight grade, veteran, hard worker and most importantly someone that would make her laugh and put her first for the rest of his life. They would marry and a year later I would come along and change their lives and be loved. Mom continued to work until my sister was born in the mid-60s but the funny thing for me looking back to those years is not the fact that mom worked but the incredible time I got to spend with grammy and pap-pap, who watched me till I started school. Mom or dad would pick me up after work and they would always find time to spend with me.

I have been thinking about what it must have been like for them and what I learned during those first years of my life. Mom got up every morning with my dad, made him breakfast, packed his lunch and kissed him on the way out the door. Then she would get us ready for the day, her off to the store to work and me ready to go to my grandparents or school. It is funny to me how little I remember about those trips and I sure never felt like I was losing out. Mom always had a way of being there for me when I needed her. I do remember long talks about life lessons, integrity and how we treated people, especially those we loved. More than any words were the way she lived them out, always seeming to have time for someone that needed her, even when it meant working long into the night to get done what her family needed. I laugh when I remember a phone call she answered, spent an hour talking to someone and when she hung up, she said it was a wrong number but they needed someone to talk to.

Our house was not often the neatest, but it was the house everyone was welcome to. My friends were encouraged to come to my house to play, inside or out, and everyone that came was made to feel like one of the family. There was always something to share, food, drink, conversation and laughter. She also invested in others whenever she thought she could help. I remember her spending hours trying to keep one of my cousins in school and making good life decisions after his mother died when he was very young.

Looking back, I am amazed at how loved I felt and how little we often had but, we shared what we had and built life-long relationships. My dad worked in the steel mill and had an autobody shop business on the side, Bobin’s Autobody, and recently finding some of their old records realized how little money there must have been at times. I remember bill collectors calling the house, more than one argument over money and their sometimes heated discussions over what would get paid and what would have to wait. I also realized that some of the meals we ate in those early years were because there was so little money to go around. As I think about it those days were days that would shape who I would be as a son, husband, father and friend, more than any other. While the resources might have been sparse at times, the love between husband and wife was abundant.

When mom and dad got married, he was working shifts in the mill and mom of course worked days at the store. Mom hated being alone at the house overnight, so dad took a steady daylight job, making less money, but was there when my mother needed him. That would be a pattern they would both develop over the years. Dad would make sacrifices to make sure my mom knew she was the most important person in his life. He tolerated no one disrespecting his wife. She in turn, respected him, championed him and supported him, even when they disagreed about what one of these was doing. I can never remember her, throughout her life, complaining about how he made a living or the amount of money he made.

Mom always seemed to have a word of encouragement for my dad whenever he would see himself as less than he could have been. I remember her first encouraging him, must have been in his 40s, to get his GED and then to go to trade school to study being an electrician on the GI bill. My dad hated to read, other than the newspaper, but she believed in him and with her encouragement he succeeds doing both. I have been thinking about the extra work she would have had to take on while he did those things.

In those early years I remember mom battling depression, health issues and the frustration of not being able to get pregnant even though they wanted more children. With dad’s support they battled through the challenges of building not just a relationship, but marriage built on mutual trust and respect. Looking back at photos and movies from those years I smile often at the memories we built together and how she must have shaken her head at times. There are pictures of the chicken coops, thrown together sheds from old scrap lumber my dad found somewhere, old broken-down cars sitting in the middle of the yard, sand box made out of cement blocks, monkey bars make out of steel pipe, and trucks and cars that were anything but new.

As I look through those old photographs though, it is my mother’s smile and joy of living life, especially in the middle of family. There was always family around and the more the marrier. They made the best of what they had and my memory is being surrounded by incredible love. It is funny how little I remember about things I had but I do remember the times we spent together, in the house or yard or the many vacations we took to places just to experience the world. It really didn’t matter the cost of something but the fact we did it together.

When my sister was born they made the decision that mom would not work but be a stay at home mom. I had never thought about what that cost them in lost income because they never complained about it. As I grew older and more aware I remember many discussions about making hard choices and counting the cost, especially the ones not so obvious. It meant they made changes and that was even more true when my brother was born 2 years later. Mom’s sister and her traded having babies for 5 years and there was a five kids that would grow up together. That meant other changes and costs were higher.

They made adjustments and it was in this season of life we started camping, most of the time at Pymatuning outside Jamestown. There were many other trips to explore the great country we lived in. We took a ton of day trips together. Mom made sure in the midst of all that new joy I didn’t get lost and she always found time for me. She always encouraged me to share not only my thoughts but my feelings and not be afraid to show my love to others.

While we couldn’t always afford the best, we always had the best we could have, and we shared it together. Being together was more important than what we had. I think it was in this season I learned that many of the things I thought I wanted or needed were temporary but that relationships could last a lifetime. Being at home allowed mom to support us all in remarkable ways. Thinking about it now, I realize that not only was mom at almost all important, and some just because they wanted to, events but so was dad. I remember so many times we would talk about what we needed to do during the day so that dad could be where he wanted to be after work. In our house there was not a clear division of responsibility, you did what you could to help everyone get the most out of life.

Mom loved to be with my dad and so he loved being with her. The supported each other and mom was always dad’s greatest cheerleader. She never failed to show how proud she was of what he could do and I never remember her pointing out his shortcoming. I think she knew he saw those clearly enough and that would inspire him to grow in the ways he chooses. There really was very little they didn’t do together. When they cut the grass, she pushed mowed because she liked to do that and dad drove the tractor, usually with one or two kids on his home-made seat beside him. They worked together because they wanted to play together.

Mom would continue to support us kids while taking care of dad. When the steel mills closed, and dad lost his job they continued to make decisions together and found ways of supporting us that I marvel at today. Because of my dad’s support my mother went to work as a church secretary and would spend almost three decades serving the church, its members and the pastors with dad often called on to help.

I smile when I think of how little they often had throughout their lives, but mom always seemed content with what they had. It is only now that they are both gone, and I have many of their old records that I know how little money there was even at the end of their lives. Yet, I never remember a time that one of us had a need that she didn’t try to help.

I often tell people if you want to know what is important in your life take a close look at your checkbook and calendar and you will know what your priorities are. Just this past week I was going through, looking at and then shredding many of those records. Mom’s checkbook and calendar were both filled with the contacts she had with people, resources even when hers were scarce that she gave to others and understand why so many people loved my mom like I did.

My mom and dad changed a lot in the more than 50 years they were married. That 98 pound bride that married an uneducated groom built a life and legacy of love that makes me proud. I learned how to love and be loved by a mother that didn’t talk about love but lived it by the way she loved others. I will never forget one of those last memories I had of my mom and dad together that expressed the love they ha for each other. Dad was in the emergency room and we all knew the end was getting closer. I had stepped out for some reason and as I went to go back into the room, I saw my dad crying and telling her how while he didn’t fear dying, he was sorry and worried that he couldn’t care for her anymore. She reached over, took his hand, and assured him that she would be okay. It was one of the most powerful declaration of love I have ever witnessed.

Today on Mother’s Day I celebrate the love that my mother had for me and even after more that four years I still want to pick up the phone and share the joys, fears, accomplishments and pain of life. She was the center of our family and kept us all connected because she loved us all in the way we needed to be loved.

Right before mom entered into the Church Triumphant, I had a vision of her dancing through a field of flowers surrounded by the people and pets that she had loved. There was a gateway at the end of that field and as she neared a man came out to greet her and they polkaed through the gate together smiling like two that had loved each other forever and could now do so for eternity. May each of us love and allow others to love as she loved us.

Happy Mother’s Day!