I returned to Louisiana late last night from a busy weekend: a program at Brownsboro Junior High on Thursday, a signing at the Hastings Bookstore in Tyler that night, Friday as an educational consultant for WorldandIschool.com, and Saturday at the Fort Worth Forts Trail Muster. I’ll have much to say about each of these events. Today, since it is Mother’s Day, I just want to reflect upon my mother. How can I describe her?
Her name is Jessie Faye Haines, born on October 12, (Columbus Day) in Karma, Oklahoma, a small Red River town that ironically was swept away by the river. She was an only child, raised mostly in Ivanhoe, Texas. As a mother, she was wise, sensitive, nurturing. All her life she has possessed a strong work ethic and is fiercely protective of and loyal to those she loves. She is why I love books. She would take me to the library every week, I’d max out my little library card without censorship of any kind, and then next week she’d take me again. She married my father when she was only fourteen, (he was 20) and they just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. They raised me in Dallas, where she worked at a beauty salon. She and my father (American Airlines fleet service) retired together. She is full of stories, living now in Kemp, Oklahoma. Once again the good Lord has placed her along that Red River that seems tied to her existence. I’m fortunate to have the mother I have, one I love with all my heart and one I admire and appreciate so much.
Here is a photo of my mom, myself and my recently deceased brother. I’m the one in the Army helmet. I always wore a hat of some kind. For a Mother’s Day gift, I had this photo placed on one of those Kodac memory boxes.
These quotations were sent to me by Pamela, a GT teacher:
Marion C. Garretty
Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.
Strickland Gillilan
You may have tangible wealth untold;/Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold./Richer than I you can never be -/I had a mother who read to me.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
Jewish Proverb
A mother understands what a child does not say.
Spanish Proverb
An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.
How sweet and what a precious photo! As you know, Mother’s Day is bittersweet for me as I lost my mother a month after my fourth birthday. But thankfully I had a father and seven siblings that instilled in me a love of books and reading so I’ll post this by Strickland Gillilan: You may have tangible wealth untold;/Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold./Richer than I you can never be -/I had a mother who read to me.