Mom's Almost Finished Product

From left: Dad, Dave, Grandma Hawley, unhappy me, Mom

I had my students write their favorite holiday memory this week in class. Invariably, their membrances involved family and the majority of the majority involved mom or grandmother. Mine did as well as I gave the example. This is from May 10, 2015.

Being Mother's Day of 2015, I decided to compile an abbreviated list of what my saintly mother, Sarah Nelda Chesshir Hawley,  taught me. These are in no particular order!

1. Eat everything set before you.
2. You need to comb your hair (and shave in older years) before worship.
3. No gum in church!
4. Moms get their feelings hurt, sometimes to the bewilderment of their sons.
5. My bedroom always looked like 'the wreck of the Hesperus!' A quick google search reveals this was a poem about a sailing calamity by Longfellow which somehow applied to my sleeping quarters.
6. When in doubt, quote your favorite Bible verse which for Mom was, 'many are called but few are chosen!' from Matthew 22:14.
7. Everybody has a job/jobs/chores.
8. Food we grow in the garden tastes better.
9. We will exhaustively clean the house before every trip in case we get killed so no one will come into a dirty home. This also applied to anyone dropping by to pick up a book, etc.
10. Everyone needs a mom even if they have their own biological mother.
11. You don't have to know anything about sports to support your children in their athletic endeavors.
12. Read your Bible everyday. Pray everyday.
13. Riding in the car is the perfect time to sing Gospel songs and hymns. 
14. Cornbread dressing is better than white bread dressing. (Dad disagreed so they compromised.)
15. You get up and put the turkey in the oven in the middle of the night.
16. Little boys like to lick the bowl and the beaters if it involves chocolate or cookie dough or cake batter.
17. Our home is ALWAYS open to anyone who needs us.
18. You never eat at restaurants on trips when you can pack it yourself.
19. The six most terrifying words in English are, 'Wait until your father gets home!' (I heard these quite often.)
20. Christmas presents should be purchased by the preceding August.
21. It is perfectly acceptable to play Christmas music all year and leave the tree up until March.
22. Introverts can become amazing public speakers. (Dale Carnegie changed Mom's life.)
23. If she uses your proper first name in conjunction with your middle name with emphasis on the middle name, as in Stephen WAYNE!, there is trouble on the horizon!
24. Mom's dating advice always had the opposite of her intended effect.
25. Athletic injuries to your children are much more excruciating to the mother than the child.
26. The First Amendment does not preclude the banning of all discussion of all things sports related at the supper table.
27. It isn't supper if it doesn't include salad and dessert.
28. Everybody gets up for breakfast even if you don't eat. (Mom and sometimes Dad cooked breakfast every day.)
29. Mom can make anything feel better.
30. Mom loved me, 'a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.' I know because she sang it to me every day when I was little.
31. A mother's love is unconditional.
32. Mothers have an inexhaustible source of energy. I learned that watching Mom keep an immaculate house, be a world class chef, be a world class educator, be a preacher's wife and den mother and surrogate to other kids beside her own, all simultaneously.
33. I was the luckiest kid in the world- I just didn't know it at the time. And I hope if you are reading this, you can say the same about your mom.

Applicable quote of the day:
There is nothing in the world of art like the songs mother used to sing.

Billy Sunday

Applicable quote of the day, # 2:
I think I can verbalize the most important thing your mom did for us. She taught us about intrinsic rewards without telling us what she was doing. This is something that too few students value today. I did some meditating after talking with you earlier and it came to me. I always say to my peers that I feel like I have accomplished the most with my students when we learn something new, or they show me they have the concept, without them even realizing they were working. She was a master at this. Now I realize where I learned how to do it. Thank you for your kind words, but I must also thank you for sharing your wonderful mother with me. Her lessons will live on with me and through my students--and so on. She is a living legend, and I have proof of this every day.

Vicki Toms Northrop, Mom's fifth grade student at Willard School in York, Nebraska

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
www.hawleybooks.com
E-mail me at steve@hawleybooks.com