Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My kind husband served me breakfast in bed.  When the kids were home, they did it.  I hope their kids are doing it for them.  Being a mother was something I always longed for, and helping with my cousin's kids and reading Little Women and the like increased my desire for more kids than two.  I ended up having four, but there was a time as a teenager when my parents' friends' seven kids seemed ideal.  Having easy labors and healthy kids encouraged me.  My mother's stories of her twelve siblings made children, a lot of children, appear attractive.  My mother was an inspiration, because she truly enjoyed children.  And she was the major parent.  My father traveled a lot, so it was often just the three of us.  She taught us how to play cards:  canasta, gin rummy, crazy eights, hearts, old maid, then bridge.  She herself was a bridge champion as well as a golf winner.  I knew she was smart and athletic before I knew she left school at third grade.  She sewed all our clothes, was an amazing, forward thinking cook, had house design skills that everyone admired, and had the capacity to draw friends to her.  She mentored many teenage girls.  But mainly, I could see she loved us, loved all children, and saw raising them as a full, wonderful life.  I wish she'd had a career, for after we left, but by then she'd fought a brave battle with cancer and survived when no one conquered that particular kind of brain tumor.  It left her with a fear of reoccurence.  She told me later that no way was she leaving her kids.  My brother was eleven and I was fourteen.  She kept her word.  Thanks Mom.  I love and appreciate you more each year.