For Mom with Love

A few years ago the pastor at my church asked the congregation a question, “when you see the dates listed on a tombstone, Date of Birth, DASH, Date of Death”, what is the most significant part of this line?  Everyone thought a moment wondering was the date of birth the most important or the date that some one had died.  The answer was neither, it’s the DASH between the dates that’s most important.  You see, that little DASH, sandwiched between those two dates represents not the birth and not the death but the life of that person.  It represents their relationships, their accomplishments and how they have touched the lives of the people around them. I’m here today to talk about my mom’s DASH, and what a great DASH it is.

My mom was born December 17, 1922 in a small town just outside Nashville Tennessee.  She had an older sister, my Aunt Evelyn and two younger sisters and a brother, my Aunt Helen, Aunt Doris and Uncle Sonny.  My mom’s early life and that of her sisters and brother was not an easy one.  In 1928, when mom was just 6 years old, her mother died.  I remember many times throughout my life having conversations with mom about that time.  She told me how she would sit on the steps of her grandmother’s porch, her heart aching from the loneliness she felt at the loss of her mother. Each time she talked with me about this I could hear in her voice and see in her eyes the pain that never quite healed.  She had a wonderful grandmother who kept the family together during the difficult years of the great depression.  The adversity of those years and pain of losing their mother so early created an extraordinary bond between my mother and her siblings, a bond that I suspect very few sisters and brothers ever share.

It was these first 20 or so years, marked by the loss of her mother, the difficulties of the depression and the importance and necessity to rely on ones family and ones self that helped mold the strong, compassionate and loving person my mother would be all her life.  

During World War II mom worked in a munitions factory.  Shortly after the war in August of 1946, mom met, and in a whirlwind romance, married her partner for life, a 1^st lieutenant in the US Air Force, E.J. Ticknor.  My dad has often told the story of how he took mom to meet his family in Iowa during the Christmas holidays of 1946.  He proposed to mom on Christmas Eve.  And as the story goes, my Aunt Velma and the Ticknor matrimonial machinery kicked into high gear and it was just a matter of days until December 29^th, 1946, my mom and dad were married.  It may have been a blizzard with temperatures near 0 that snowy day in December, but dad has often told me it happened so fast he didn’t have time to get cold feet.

I’ve heard my mom and dad tell many stories about the early years of their marriage.  How they lived on very little money yet felt like they had a million dollars.  I’ve heard about the friendships they made that have lasted half a century.  Stories, many stories, about a young couple, learning how beautiful life can be when you are sharing it with someone you love.

Big changes were in store when on my mom’s birthday in 1953, my brother Wayne was born.  Her role as dedicated wife would change forever.  She was now both dedicated wife and mother.  Four years later in December of 1957, it was my turn to join the family.

Mom brought a quiet, efficient dignity to motherhood. She spared no effort in raising my brother and myself. She was a person who always put everyone’s needs ahead of her own. When her sister Helen died of cancer in 1962, mom did not hesitate to welcome my 9 year old cousin Sheri into our family. Sheri would live as part of our family for only a short time, but years later when I looked back I realized that my mom, better than anyone else, understood my cousins heartache and loneliness.

Mine was the perfect childhood.  A kind and caring mother who watched me go off to school each morning.  A mother who was there every day when my brother and I came home from school.  A mother who was never too busy to hear a story or share a happy moment.  A mother who was always there for two small boys when ever they needed her.  A mother who always knew how important it was to be hugged.

As I look back at those years when my brother and I were young I realize how important that feeling of family was.  I close my eyes and I can still feel the warmth of my brother’s back pressed against mine on those cold mornings when I would slip down from my top bunk to be closer to him.  The feeling of security when lying in bed between my mother and father when I was sick or just needed some extra love.  My mother was about family.

I have, as I am sure each one of you have, looked back in my memory for that earliest recollection.  The picture that comes into my mind is of my brother and I playing in the yard of our Tampa home.  I can see my mom and dad working in the yard.  In this memory I watch my parents work together as my brother and I enjoy the warmth of the sun and the warmth of being together as a family.  My mom was about family and what a great family it was.

Many wonderful thoughts of my mother crowd my memory.  Dad driving our boat while mom helped another person learn to water ski.  Times when the rain came down like bucks and there we were, like four drown rats, camping in the rain and loving every minute of it.  Life was always an adventure. We traveled to many great places, from the Florida Keys to the streets of San Francisco, from the wilds of Manitoba to the back streets of old Mexico. This time of my brother and my life was truly magical, made magical, by the love of two great parents.

But it wasn’t always easy for my mom.  Throughout the almost 30 years that my father was an Air Force officer, so many times my mom would be left at home to act as both mother and father while my dad was overseas.  She never openly showed it, but I always knew that the fear of losing my father to a military accident tugged at those childhood memories of loss making her strength during those times all the more remarkable.

The years that my brother and I spent at home went by with blinding speed.  Soon my mom and dad would be empty nesters.  They say that when all the kids finally leave home that sometimes a couple is left with very little to keep them together.  Not with my mom and dad.  This new chapter in their lives seemed to energize them.  Over the next two decades my parents would live the life that most people can only dream of.  They spent six summers in Alaska.  They visited the polar bears on the Hudson Bay, and enjoyed a cruise around Hawaii. From Newfoundland to the Yucatan, from Point Barrow to the Caribbean, my parents shared the adventures of a lifetime.    My mom and dad set the standard by which all retired couples should be measured.  They knew how to do it, and they did it right.  All that time together, all those miles traveled, all those experiences shared would be meaningless had it not been for that special love they felt for each other.

A couple of weeks ago, Amy, my mom’s first grandchild and I were sitting together late in the evening waiting to give my mom her medication.  Amy shared with me how my mother’s house had always been that one sanctuary that she could count on.  She was safe there, no questions asked. We talked for some time about how wonderful it was for her, my brother and I, to have such a haven, a place to go where we were always welcome, safe from the world.  And as we talked I remembered a recent sermon by my church’s pastor.  The sermon was based on a passage of scripture in Luke’s Gospel.  This section of Luke immediately follows the time when Jesus had gone into the mountains to choose, then instruct the disciples.  From Luke 6, versus 17-19:

“He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of His disciples and a great number of people from all over Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear Him and to be healed. Those who were troubled He cured, and the people all tried to touch Him, because power was coming from Him and healing them all.”

They came to Him from the unevenness of their lives.  He sought a level place where he could heal them and make them whole.  A place where they would feel safe.

Jesus is our level place.  When we find ourselves in deep depression, when our hearts are breaking, Jesus is there.  And much as the love of Jesus provides us our spiritual Level Place, so too did the unconditional love of my mother provide for my brother and I, and for all the family, a Level Place.  A place we always knew we could find love.  A place for our heart’s to mend.  A place were our mistakes would always be forgiven.  As my father, my brother and all our family and friends work threw the grief of losing my mother, let us all remember that while my mother is no longer here, Jesus is with us now.  In Him we are always forgiven and we are always loved.

They say that God works in mysterious ways, but sometimes they aren’t so mysterious after all.  You see, 46 years ago, and 42 years ago, the hand of God reached down and cradled two infant boys.  My brother and I want to thank two young girls who made what must have been the most difficult decision of their young lives.  A moment of selfless courage placed my brother and I into God’s hands so that He could deliver us to our mother and father.  You see, while both my brother and I were adopted at birth, we know that God’s will was done.  That we were then, and will always be, our mother’s boys.

My mom occupies a special place in the heart of every member of my family. My father, her soul mate for 54 years, my brother and I, her daughters-in-law, Debbie and Donna, her six grandchildren and great-granddaughter.  This is true of her sisters and brother, nieces and nephews, and everyone else. It was a real honor and privilege for each of us to have known her.

Several years ago I gave my mother a copy of Robert Munsch’s book, “Love You Forever”.  Many of you have probably heard or read this small book.  It starts out with a young mother holding her baby (two small baby boys) and singing:

I’ll love you forever,

I’ll like you for always,

As long as I’m living

My baby you’ll be.

Now my mom is gone, I sing to her these last words:

I’ll love you forever,

I’ll like you for always,

As long as I’m living

My mommy you’ll be.

To my sweet mother, Godspeed, and may your soul rest in peace.