Life With Mother
Life with mother was both peaceful and exciting — solemn with responsibility and hilarious with fun — serious about the serious things of God and joyful about His goodness. She was both mother and father to us all. It was not until years later when I was both mother and father to my sons that I realized she must have had moments of doubting her own adequacy — and moments of loneliness and panic...
But she always made us feel that we were fortunate and rich — and now as I look back, indeed we were....
Now nobody can be summed up in one sentence. The complexities in our make-up render it quite impossible. But people are constantly being summed up in one sentence, none the less, and we take it as a matter of course, knowing that the summation is a long-range view. With all our inconsistencies we emerge after a few years with general behavior patterns and we are bound to be more or less consistent in some things.
If I were to sum up my mother in one sentence according to the over-all impression she has left on me — I would say that she was a happy woman. Now I'll admit that this is no earth-shaking statement to make, like "My mother was a skin-diver" or "My mother was a secret service agent." It becomes significant only in the face of the fact that from a human standpoint she had very little to be happy about. For some strange reason she never seemed to get ahold of this fact, and not only went right on being happy anyway, but managed to keep the rest of us from realizing that we had nothing to be happy about either. This is no mean feat, and bears some analysis, so at the risk of indulging in what might be cloyingly familiar and sentimental terminology, I'm going to evoke a bit of the past to try to explain what her secret might have been.
"We" were a miscellaneous collection of driftwood — my sister and myself, an assortment of orphan cousins, male and female, who came and went periodically — and my grandmother who took care of us
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all while mother worked. I was told that my father was handsome (his picture bore that out), attended Syracuse University, was a hero, and was buried in Flanders Field. I was shown his medals. But it was all done with pride and not with tears.
None of us knew we were unfortunate. Mother sewed late into the evenings, and from under her magic fingers emerged clothing for all of us — shirts and jackets for the boys, and dresses and coats for the girls — and extensive and imaginative wardrobes for the dolls from the leftover scraps. There was plenty to eat, and as far as we knew, we were rich.
She could work all day, make fudge and popcorn balls in the evening, adjust the crystal set earphones and listen to a radio play while the washing machine was churning away in the summer kitchen, march us off to bed and hear our prayers, sew late into the night, hang out the laundry early next morning — and be off to work again, her lunch in a paper bag. She was indefatigable — if not physically, certainly in attitude.
We lived in many places in my early childhood — and every place was pretty, scrubbed and painted to a standstill inside and gardened and raked and trimmed outside. My mother loved flowers. She talked to them, encouraged them to grow, complimented them on their progress and beauty, and apologized to them when she had to throw a bowl of dead ones out. They grew for her with a fanatical and impassioned zeal, like a dedicated and in-
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spired team that goes all out for a great coach.
When we start to dredge the morass of memory, all sorts of things come up — some of them dangerous contraband, some of them gems. My dredging produces mostly gems, and one of the most rib-tickling ones is a Model T Ford that we called (with a singular lack of imagination) Henry.
It was when we lived on my uncle's farm that mother bought Henry. We had gone there to tide us over a city-housing shortage crisis, though she had made it seem like a lark. We lived in several rooms over a huge carriage house. The place had been converted and had a studio-like atmosphere that would probably be considered quite charming and artistic today. It was different from our city houses and we thought it fun, especially so because from its upper windows we had a view of the entire farm, the surrounding meadows which boasted a huge pond, and the city way in the distance in the valley. From these windows we could also watch for mother at dinner time, alighting from her "ride" home from work, way out by the mailbox. We would scramble to meet her, telling her of the day's triumphs and troubles, and asking her to be mediator in all the unresolved spats of the day. If the ratio of spats was high, she would laugh and say, "Wait till I've had a cup of tea. We'll all feel better after dinner." It always worked. After dinner we'd either forgotten all about it, or the edge was gone.
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But this particular night her "ride" went right past the mailbox, and while we were still speculating on what had become of mother, she came driving along in a Model T, and careened around the corner by the mailbox without benefit of slowing down. The Ford literally shot into the lane, its thin tires alternately descending into and bouncing out of the deep ruts, and plunged into the huge area between the main house and the barns, but it didn't stop there. It continued at the same speed toward the corncrib and we got a blurred image of mother determinedly steering, her mouth set in grim lines. All she had to do of course was turn off the ignition and all the fuss would be over in a minute, but for some strange reason this did not occur to any of us. The Ford was an unleashed monster by now. It plowed between the corncrib and the barn, neatly nicked off a corner of the pig pen, sending boards and splinters askew — and shot with wild abandon down into the alfalfa field. By that time we were running from all directions — we kids, my aunt and uncle — all but gramma. She stood in the doorway with her apron over her head. Gramma was a Comstock, from the Comstocks, and she never forgot it even in moments of great stress. Father might have attended Syracuse University but a Comstock had founded it. Comstock women never ran or shouted. They stood still and threw their aprons over their heads and waited until the crisis was past.
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Well, down in the middle of the alfalfa field, we found mother, her face a mixture of fury, apology and unbelief. Both hands were still tight on the wheel, one of them clutching the instruction book also. She'd kept it in proximity to look up any salient points of driving she might forget on the trip home; unfortunately it was impossible to drive and look up anything at the same time. This would have worked out very well if she'd forgotten anything else, but she'd forgotten how to stop.
We brushed off the alfalfa, murmuring words of comfort, and then suddenly the ridiculousness of it, and the relief that she was not hurt, hit us all in the same moment and we sat down on the running boards and laughed. As shaken as she was, she laughed with us, and then got out with rubber knees to survey the damage. The encounter with the pig pen had done surprisingly little damage; she had just sort of bounced off.
My uncle, who had already memorized the intricacies of the instruction book from his Model T, drove the car back to the carriage house. A couple of startled pigs came squealing out, and sent us scurrying to round up the rest of them. Mother wanted to help, but we protested, prescribing for her, her own infallible remedy for everything. "Take the apron off gramma's head and go get a cup of tea. After dinner you'll feel better." After dinner she did feel better and, undaunted, got back into the Model T and practiced every conceivable ma-
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neuver with my uncle as instructor and insurance against catastrophe. The next morning we gathered in the yard, shouting instructions and encouragement after her as she proudly drove off to work.
In starting a Model T you had to set the spark, the gas and the brake, go around to the front and crank it, then, when the engine turned over, dash madly back to reset the spark and the gas to keep the thing going. In order to expedite this bit of legerdemain, mother taught us what to do, and by turns we would be allowed to sit proudly in the front seat and work the spark and the gas while she cranked. It was a great privilege and honor we all wanted to earn, and mother, always quick to seize an advantage, used it in the threat and reward department.
Of course you never knew when you started out for a ride whether you were going to get back on your own steam or hire a horse. Hills were the greatest threat and whenever we came to one we would steel ourselves to a man. We had some idea that by settling down in our seats we somehow held poor Henry back — and when he would begin to show signs of strain, we would all lean forward and strain with him, and as he staggered to a standstill we would propel ourselves forward and backward rhythmically, like galley slaves rowing a boat, until he finally gave up. It never worked but we did it every time. I used to wonder why we didn't cut holes in his floor for just such emergencies,
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and stick our feet through and crawl up the hill like some giant centipede.
Often little time was consumed actually riding. Most of it was spent playing by a brook or in the fields while mother and my uncle sat wearily on the running board going over the part of the instruction book that told what to do in various emergencies. Gramma would be deposited in the shade of a tree where she waited in stoic silence. She refused to wait in the car for fear it would suddenly start by itself while they were still sitting on the running board, and run off with her. And we were admonished to stay close by in case it started; the object was to all pile in, in the shortest time possible (never mind who sits where!) before it quit again. Although our family was filled with explosive individualists, Henry was the greatest diva of all.
It wasn't only blowouts and an unpredictable engine that kept us in an uproar. One night mother came driving home from work in a torrential summer shower, the top collapsed all about her and her head sticking out through the hole it had punctured during the mishap. I don't know what kind of material Model T tops were made of in those days, but her head had gone through with no trouble at all when the top fell upon her. She looked like an enormous ghoulish vampire, black wings outspread, flying low in search of prey. Being a woman of quick decisions and no nonsense, she'd kept right
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on driving rather than stop and attempt to put the top up again and risk having the engine quit with some strange malady she would be unable to diagnose.
As easy-going and fun-loving as mother was, when it came to dealing out punishment she was something to reckon with. We had certain boundaries on the farm. It was filled with expensive and dangerous equipment and choice fruit to be sold, and anyone who went off bounds was promptly dealt with. There was one group of apple trees we were absolutely forbidden to touch. Apples on the ground, yes. But they had better be apples that fell unaided, by their own choice. And climbing the trees was the most flagrant of all crimes. But those apples were the best tasting on the whole farm — indeed in the whole world — and one tree was only fifty feet from another carriage house up on the hill. It did not take my cousin Arthur long to figure out the connection. He called a council, assigned each of us a post, and that night the plan went into operation. He climbed the tree after dark and installed a pulley hook in the trunk while we installed another one in a window frame in the upper floor of the carriage house. Then we took a rope and with muffled orders, groans, and many false starts, we finally managed a shuttle system in the form of a berry basket between the tree and the shed. Just what our thinking was, in going to such elaborate lengths to get something
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we could have had just by surreptitiously climbing the tree, escapes me at the moment.
Anyhow, the next day after school, we acted as sentries in strategic places, gave Art the signal that it was safe to climb the tree, and scrambled up to our end of the shuttle in the carriage house. It was simple. He filled the basket — we pulled it in. It worked like a charm for awhile — until the day my aunt glanced out her kitchen window and saw a basket of apples floating mysteriously through the air. Justice was quick and fierce. We smarted for hours.
Saturday was always a big day. We all drove into town in Henry. In the morning the groceries and haircuts and errands were taken care of, and at noon we went to lunch in the swankiest restaurant in town. There were white tablecloths, an orchestra, white-coated waiters, and fabulous colored lights playing everywhere from a revolving chandelier. Eating there was partly for fun and partly academic. We were taken there to be instructed. We had to read the menu, order for ourselves, sit quietly, speak softly, butter only a portion of our roll at a time, use the proper utensils, say please and thank you — and behave with impeccable decorum while we discussed in grown-up fashion the topics of the day. It was a sort of field work for the theory in manners and deportment we got at home. Mother was, rich or poor, a Comstock too.
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As wonderful as that treat was, it was not the real highlight of the week. That came early Saturday morning and you had to wait for a Saturday when it was your turn. When your turn came, mother would lean quietly over your bed and whisper your name. You would leap up and get dressed hurriedly, and in quiet conspiracy the two of you would sneak out, fishing poles over your shoulders, a can of worms (dug behind the barn the day before) between you, and make for the barbed-wire fence that skirted the meadow. You would help each other crawl through, and follow the path to the pond. Then, hooks baited and corks bobbing on the ripples, you would sit and talk softly and lazily, soaking in the dawn and the dew and the loveliness of God's awakening world. The placid mirror of water reflected the surrounding daisies in rippling duplicate, and as you watched, you could talk to mother in private, have her all to yourself, chuckle with her, bare your heart to her, and drink in her understanding and her wisdom. And the wonder and the beauty of it would sink to the very depths of your soul and heal every wound and clear up every puzzle that had accumulated since you'd been there last. You would be back at breakfast time, proudly showing your catch to the now-awake family, and then the fish were cleaned and fried for breakfast. But catching the fish was only incidental. The real joy was having her all to yourself. I did not realize until I was grown that those were "pri-
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vate interviews" — the only way she could get to know each of us as individuals and let us know her.
In spite of the fact that she had been up at dawn and carted us through a hectic day, we were shampooed on Saturday night, and off to Sunday school and church on Sunday morning, scrubbed and pressed till we shone. We sat in the pew with gramma. Mother sang in the choir. How she could manage to stand, much less sing, I'll never know. But sing she did, and still managed to drive us somewhere Sunday afternoon, march us off to Christian Endeavor Sunday evening, and have enough energy to make popcorn balls Sunday night.
She had a sweet alto voice, and an amazing ability to pick out any tune on the piano and play it by ear. She could play "MacNamara's Band" — and hymns — and everything in between. She could never pass the piano without playing it, even if there was time for only one chorus. To her, hymn singing was prayer and praise — and worship. She would play and sing softly to herself when she was in trouble, and fill the house with joyful hymns when she was happy. She could never read a note, but was determined that we would. So we all went through an agonizing period of piano lessons and filled the air with a cacophony of scales and discords. Mother was slow to admit defeat, but in the end it was a dismal failure.
Mother spoke two languages. And like most linguists, she could think better in her own. For
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the most part she spoke ours, but in moments of absent-mindedness or stress she would lapse into the other one, which threw the family into a furor of confusion because we could never quite get the hang of it. The thing that made it difficult was that the same word never meant the same thing twice. The various nuances of ordinary languages are confusing at first, it is true. But once you learn them you can depend upon them. They never change. In mother's other language, however, words like thingamabob, whatchamacallit, thingamajig, thingamacallit, whatchamajig, jigger, do-dad, dydo, whatsit, whosit, etc., could mean anything at all. They were all interchangeable and never twice the same.
We had various methods of expediting the translation. If things were fairly quiet we could bridge the language barrier by applying the rules of the game in which you guessed the object your opponent was thinking of by walking in various directions while he told you whether you were cold, warm or hot. Cold meant you were way off the beam — warm meant you were getting closer — and hot meant the object was at hand. So when she would say, "Will you be a lamb and get the whatsit?" we would say, "Where?"
"You know where. It's in the top right drawer of the whosit along with the rest of them." And she would gesticulate vaguely toward the end of the room where there was a huge cabinet and
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a desk — and both of them had lots of drawers.
"Here?" we would say, moving toward the desk.
"No — the dydo."
"Here?" The cabinet was the only possibility left.
"Yes. Some black whatchamacallit, number sixty."
Well that could only mean black thread.
But in times of emergency she could throw us into a panic.
"Quick — the thingamabob!"
"The what?"
"The whatchamacallit. And please hurry!"
In a case like this we would resort to the game of twenty questions and by elimination and clues, track it down with great efficiency.
"Is it in the living room?"
"No — in the whatchamajig!"
"The kitchen?"
"Yes — and hurry!"
"Do you want us to get it or do something with it?"
"Turn the jigger off under it before it burns!"
Oh. There we had it. We scrambled to turn the gas off under the lamb stew.
The thing that saved us was the fact that she had no other language of her own for verbs. If we could pin her down to a verb, we had it made. I've always been grateful for this. If we had ever had to conjugate her verbs I doubt if we'd have survived.
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Fortunately you can learn anything if you keep at it long enough, by instinct if no other way. The other night I phoned her and, three thousand miles apart, we conversed freely with no trouble at all.
"How's your thingamabob coming along?"
"Oh fine. I have five whatsits written. But I'm having a little trouble with the whatchamacallits."
"I'm sorry about that, sweetheart. Don't get discouraged."
"Oh I'm not discouraged. Once I get the dydos all straightened out the rest goes easily."
"Well I'm glad. Let me know if Mr. Whosits at the publishing house likes it."
"I'll do that, mother. I'll let you know what he thinks."
Which shows the repercussions of years of proximity.
It was during my high school years that mother became an unreasonable fiend who didn't know anything and didn't understand anything and of everything she didn't understand the most was me. She didn't understand that I liked my room in chaos. Or that I wasn't lazy, I was just meditating. Or that I wasn't nasty, I was just misunderstood. And she was horrid when I cut up four good dresses and dyed them black to cut up and make one black dress, a perfectly reasonable thing to do. And then she committed the epitome of all crimes — got married
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and went off on a honeymoon at the tottering old age of thirty-eight!
I graduated from high school and went off to further my schooling in a rage, with intent to disown my family.
The fact that I did not feel close to her during those years has done more than anything else to keep my head above water during the years my sons did not feel close to me. There is a great gulf and you cannot bridge it. The child becomes an adult and the process is such a raging turmoil that it is only by the grace of God that we survive it at all. But the vagaries of my adolescence are beside the point here. Mother had emerged from her self-enforced loneliness and was happily married, and I did not have the sense to appreciate it.
Her happiness was short-lived. Glaucoma, discovered too late, sent her into surgery with little hope that she would see again. I went back home for summer vacation, numb with terror and repentance. We waited for weeks after surgery for the glasses that would tell us the outcome. The day they arrived, she went into her bedroom alone and knelt and prayed before she opened the package. Then we heard her fumble with the wrappings — and then we heard her say: "Oh, God. I cannot see." It was the only time I'd ever heard her really cry. But the next morning she woke us all up with a start. She was playing the piano and singing "Sweeter As the Years Go By."
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In the years that followed there were several more operations with only light-and-shadow vision restored. And then my dear stepfather died.
My aunt, whose farm we'd lived on, was alone now too, so they lived together in mother's house. And mother kept things humming.
She found new ways of doing things with the agility of a cat in the dark, absolutely refused all our attempts to baby her, joined everything the Blind Society had to offer, rolled bandages and made dressings for the Red Cross, sealed envelopes, made Christmas wreaths — and went to visit blind people who were despondent! And people beat a path to her door to visit, to have a cup of tea, to sing songs and hymns — and to hear her ringing laugh. She had more friends now than ever before. And her life was full.
The day I decided to write the script in this chapter was the day I barged in on her for a chat, and she was busy at the dining room table, poring over a huge book. She announced cheerfully that it was Braille and she had a teacher and was determined to learn to read all over again. She knew, she said, she was too old to learn it, so she'd asked God to help her.
That day I discovered mother all over again in a different way. She had always been "mother." I had never really seen her before as a woman. I thought about it on the way home. And what I thought, I jotted down. It turned out to be my
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Mother's Day radio program a few weeks later.
* * * * *
DEAR MOTHER
Dear Mother,
It tells us in Proverbs — "Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.... She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed...."
I've often wondered just when a human being first becomes aware of his mother — I know that, subconsciously, a baby is first aware of his mother when he drinks of the sweetness of her breast and satisfies not only a physical hunger but a deeper hunger and need for love. But when does he become aware of her as another human being with desires and fears and hopes and deep, deep disappointments?
When did I first become aware of you as a person? When we were very small — and you sat up far into the night for weeks before Christmas while everything the most
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exacting dolly needs in clothing and bedclothing materialized like magic under your clever fingers — and when Christmas came, and the living room was transformed into a veritable fairyland of lights and sparkle and happiness — I wasn't aware of you then. I didn't know you slipped away to stand in the closet where his clothes were hung, to cry with loneliness because he was dead — I didn't know with the knowledge that aches that there was a Flanders Field and my father was buried there, and your heart was broken. I just knew it was Christmas and you had provided me with my heart's desire because it was the sole aim and purpose and reason for your being — to please and delight me.
And through the years when you worked all day while gramma cared for us — and came home at night and did the work she could not do — I wasn't aware of you, or of her either — oh, how I could love her now!
What a miscellaneous collection of driftwood our family was! Orphans, and refugees from broken homes, banded together in one family — each one a problem for psychoanalysis, I suppose, if we'd ever heard of it then. With such a collection of assorted temperaments and backgrounds, it's a wonder we didn't all blow up and disappear right out of sight!
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I used to wonder how you ever put up with the rest of them — I used to wonder how you could put up with Arthur — with his red hair and incorrigible teasing — did you know I used to lie awake and imagine dramatic court scenes where I was being tried for having hit him on the head with a hammer and killed him — and of course the judge, after hearing what an outrageous boy he was, commended me highly and gave me a reward. It was an outlet, I suppose, certainly better than killing him — which I'm awfully glad I did not do — for he's now the father of two wonderful sons and the head of a prosperous business.
I used to wonder how you could put up — but why go on? I guess all my childhood I thought that life would be wonderful if you would only get rid of the rest of them and have more time for just me. You poor darling — you never once had time for yourself — how selfish I was.
How did you do it? How did you work all week — and have the courage to scrub us all to a standstill and march us off to church each Sunday? How did you have the energy to sing in the choir? Even as I write this letter, you amaze me all over again.
You must have taught me a great deal more than I realized. Remember the poetry
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I wrote? "No artist can paint the color... of the beautiful morning sky... the yellow that splashes on treetops... at noon when the sun is high... No artist can match the colors... in a lovely setting sun... ta da da da da da da da da da... (forgotten that part)... da da da when the day is done. If I could but express myself... that feeling that's inside... Man cannot do anything... lest he in God abide." I was eight years old when I scribbled that on a paper napkin. I must have absorbed it from you. My whole concept of God, I absorbed from you.
Through those years I was aware of you as a mother — I remember loving you dearly, striving to please you, glorying in the times we had together alone, when we went fishing together and talked softly in the quiet early morning, and my soul was flooded with the happiness of having you all to myself.
And then there were the years when I wasn't aware of you at all. I was too painfully aware of myself. I was growing in every direction and not like the lovely lady I'd always been in my daydreams — but fat and ugly and stupid with my nose shiny and my feet too big! Were you there? Were you there at all? I didn't see you. The emotional upheaval of my metamorphosis was too terrific. I couldn't grow up gently, as a
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flower — I exploded, like a cork out of a bottle. How could you stand me? How could you encourage me to speak, to write, how could you see any possibilities in me when I was such a muttonhead?
Do you remember when there was a celebration for the cast in a school play and I planned for weeks to go, and pressed my dress at least eight times the day before — and do you remember the mounting panic as my face broke out with amazing speed — and the depths of my despair when, the last minute, I was forced to face the fact that I had chicken pox? You were the only one who understood my humiliation.
But for the most part, I wasn't aware of you at all. You didn't see anything the way I did. You didn't know anything either. You wanted me to get enough sleep and eat vegetables and think babies were cute. Those years must have been tough on you.
Then you emerged from your self-enforced loneliness and married Dad and I was horrified. I couldn't imagine how two people so old could possibly fall in love! (You were only thirty-eight.) And I went away to school.
How awful to think that when you faced the blackest part of your life, I was aware of you the least. While I was busy getting my education and trying my wings, you were
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fighting a losing battle to keep your eyesight.
After the first operation on your dear eyes, wonderful improvement, joyous hope, and then the relentless infection began to destroy again. Through the operations that followed, the same hope, the same marvelous improvement at first — the same bitter disappointment. And through it all, though we protested, you insisted on "Business as usual" — and never once did you even think of not doing your own work. Like an ingenious blood-vessel that has been truncated in one direction, you promptly found another way to do it!
I remember, after one operation, when weeks went by for healing, and then the glasses came — the glasses that would tell whether this one was a success. You went alone to your room and knelt and asked God to give you the grace and the strength to bear it, if you could not see. Who of us can understand the anguish that was yours as you fumbled at the wrappings and found the glasses and put them on —
"Oh, God — God. I cannot see — I cannot see...."
Then Dad died, and there was still another operation after that and we watched you so closely, because we said, "If this one isn't successful, it will finish her — she will not be able to bear it."
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The flashes of light came — and then stopped — and left you once more to a world of shadows and near blackness. But we had underestimated the depth of your character. Because, not long ago, you announced to me matter-of-factly that you were learning Braille. "I was going to take a few piano lessons if I had my sight again," you said. "But I decided to learn Braille instead. I'll be able to read my Bible. See? I'm on the B's. I just read 'Big Bill's baby is bald.' It surprised me so I had to laugh when I got to 'bald.' "
I didn't know what to say. I still don't. I stand in awe before your quiet, uncomplaining strength.
For at last I am aware of you, not as a child is, but as one woman who is aware of another. I didn't understand you then because I did not have the capacity to understand.
There is strength in the warp and woof of the tapestry of your life, and woven through all is a golden thread of joyous laughter and song that was always a part of you — and then there is another thread, a scarlet thread, for though the price of a virtuous woman is indeed "far above rubies" — you have not thought your own righteousness would ever get you into heaven — but have humbly claimed the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you — and I thank God for you. May He bless you and keep you on this Mother's Day — and in the days to come, until you see Him... face to face.
Always,
Your little girl
Ethel
* * * * *
Yes, my mother was a great woman. I did not want to say this right off. I wanted it to sneak up on you the way it has sneaked up on me, through the years. Because her greatness isn't the kind that makes headlines and gets in "Who's Who" and stays aloof, leaving us discouraged and thinking, "I could never do that." It is the kind that is right down to earth with the rest of us. She was great because she was "faithful in little things," which is something we can all attain, and which is of great worth to God.
In Micah we are asked, "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (6:8)
She taught us — "And thou shalt teach them (God's commandments) diligently unto thy children..." (Deut. 6:7).
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She trained us — "Train up a child in the way he should go..." (Prov. 22:6).
She punished us — "Chasten thy son while there is hope..." (Prov. 19:18).
She loved us — "... but the greatest of these is love" (I Cor. 13:13).
She always remembered the good — "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things" (Phil 4:8).
She would not give up — "Let us not be weary in well doing..." (Gal. 6:9).
And she was a happy woman. I mentioned at the beginning that she never seemed to get ahold of the fact that from a human standpoint she had little to be happy about and went right on being happy anyway. The reason is not so strange. The reason is that her happiness did not depend on happenings. She had a built-in joy and that joy was the presence of God. It had nothing to do with her circumstances; it was always there whether they were good or bad. She was so completely in God's hands that no matter how things looked, she had everything to be happy about. Was not God still in heaven? And did He not know? And did He not care?
She had the sense of constant discovery children
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have — and too many adults lose too soon — that made all of life an adventure, even the simplest things. Perhaps her secret was that she never thought of personal happiness as a goal or as an end in itself. It was a sort of by-product that was popping up at every corner while she was busy doing other things.
But to get from the past to the present and bring us up to date: My mother is a happy woman. I phoned her tonight from my hotel room in San Francisco and told her I had just written this chapter. She protested violently — what on earth could I think of about her to fill a whole chapter? And then we got talking about Henry — and I heard her ringing laughter over thousands of miles...
