Memories of Mom

My mother passed away 20 years ago this month, on February 1st, 1998.  She was 79, one week older than Billy Graham, but he got to live 20 years longer than her.

My mother was a dear loving person.  It’s hard to put into words all that she means to me.

I was her firstborn, and she had waited long for me.  She was already 36 years old when I came along.  She had married in her late 20s, and didn’t have me until eight years later.  I felt very loved and treasured.  Maybe that’s why they named me Pearl.

Mom had a calm and steady personality.  Her moods didn’t swing up and down like mine do.  She never flew into a rage, but she never danced around the living room with  joy either.  She did sing a lot though, while she worked.  I felt the singing was often to cheer herself up.  She seemed sad underneath.  I remember her often standing over the kitchen sink washing dishes, the sun streaming through the window, as she sang ‘Count Your Blessings’.  From an early age something bothered me about it, although I was too young to understand.  I would say, “Mommy, don’t ‘ing’!”  Now I realize that her singing made me feel her sadness, and somehow I felt I may be to blame for it.

It wasn’t until much later that I realized her constant undertone of sadness was likely due to the passing away of her own mother when she was in her mid teens.  Her father married her mother’s sister after that, but my mother didn’t feel at home there anymore, with her stepmother.

As a teenager I wondered why Mom never made eye contact, or talked about things emotional.  I wonder if that might have been because she lost her own mother at that young age and consequently found it hard to make such connections.

Mom had gone to school through grade 8, which was as high as it went at that time in small-town Saskatchewan.  Later, after her father re-married, she went to a small Bible school.  She had fun times there, and told me stories of the girls in their upstairs dorm communicating with the boys in their downstairs dorm by banging on the pipes, and the girls playing pranks on the boys by giving one a bowl of mustard instead of pudding etc.  Apparently he just ate the whole bowl and didn’t say anything, causing much giggling amoungst the girls.

Unfortunately while she was at Bible school she contracted an eye disease, and had to go home and stay inside in a dark room for several months until she recovered.

After that she decided to go and work as a housemaid, first in Saskatoon and later in Moose Jaw.  She learned a lot living in these wealthy homes and became an excellent housekeeper and cook.  For a time she went to live in the Vancouver area with her family, and worked in a very good bakery in Shaughnessy, the wealthiest part of the city.  She had fun with the other girls working there, and learned some excellent baking skills.

It was back in Moose Jaw that she met my father, as he delivered blocks of ice for the ice box to the house where she worked.  The story goes that she trapped him behind the ironing board!

Growing up in an old house in south Vancouver in the fifties and early sixties, we had a peaceful life.  Mom stayed at home with us kids, giving us an invaluable sense of loving security.  She was always there in the house, or out in the yard, washing clothes in the old wringer washer, hanging them outside to dry on the clothesline, cleaning the floors on her hands and knees, growing a little garden.  Bandaging our knees when we fell, wiping away our tears, wiping our runny noses.  I loved sitting on her lap and snuggling into her softness.  Sometimes I accompanied her to visit the lady next door, and I enjoyed just sitting in the kitchen with them and listening to them talk, not really paying attention to what they were saying.  My brother must have been playing with the boys there, who were his age and younger.  Later my sister often played with the youngest one.  I sometimes played with the boys as well until I was five years old and met a girl my age who lived a few houses further up the street, who became my best friend.  Our mothers had been friends in Saskatoon when they both worked in houses there.

Mom often read to us, and prayed with us, and taught us about God and Bible stories.  As a teenager when I had doubts about God I was always amazed at her ability to answer all my questions with wisdom.

After us kids grew up and got married, she was always pleased to be with us and her grandchildren.  We often all dropped in to their house on a Sunday afternoon, and she would feed us all a light supper of buns and cheese and jam, and ice cream for dessert.

In her later years Mom began to inexplicably lose weight and lose strength.  When Dad ended up in a nursing home after a major stroke, we realized how much Mom had depended on him.  We got her into the same nursing home, and she passed away within a year.  How I still miss her!  I can hardly believe twenty years have passed already since she went.