Mother: The Heart of the Family**
For most boys, their mothers hold a special place in their hearts. But my mother was more than just special to me—she was the anchor, the quiet force holding our family together. From the earliest moments I can remember, Mom was a pillar of faith and devotion, though I didn't recognize that until much later. As a child, she was simply “Mom,” the planner, the nurturer, the woman who always seemed to know what to do.
My sisters have always claimed I got special treatment, being the youngest of the family, and I suspect they’re right. I followed her everywhere, watched her every move. She was determined, strong, and full of answers, always knowing what to do. It was in the kitchen that I felt closest to her. There was something magical about baking with her, putting together a handful of ingredients and, almost like a spell, transforming them into something entirely new. She encouraged my fascination, letting me help, guiding me through the creative process.
Later in life, after raising four boys of my own, I came to see that baking was a metaphor for how she raised us. You mix together all these ingredients—love, guidance, discipline—and hope that, when the time comes, your children will emerge with something good. Like the baking, the end result was never entirely predictable, but she always put her faith in the process.
While my dad was the disciplinarian, the one who enforced the rules, Mom was the soft touch who often smoothed things over. But she also had her limits. I’ll never forget the days when her favorite kitchen utensil—used less for cooking than for keeping us in line—became part of our lives. At around eight years old, I started to question some of her decisions, especially those that led to that familiar wooden spoon.
Mom’s identity was inseparable from her faith. In her world, her priorities were always clear: God first, then family. As a child, I struggled with that. Shouldn’t family come first? But for her, faith wasn’t just a belief system; it was the foundation for everything she did. It was what gave her the strength to get through the difficult times, and there were many.
My mother and father adopted five children to add to their own three, most of them teenagers with troubled pasts. And if that wasn’t enough, they also took in foster kids. We were a handful. Raised during the sixties and seventies—a time when young people questioned everything—we tested her faith daily. We tried every vice, pushed every boundary. I still remember the day some of the kids in the house started smoking weed. Mom was horrified, but she had this remarkable ability to deny what didn’t fit within her worldview.
Mom’s childhood had been shaped by the strict Christian household she grew up in, and faith was her lifeline. She met my father, an outgoing man with big ideas and a heart for inner-city work. He opened a world of possibilities to her—possibilities to serve, to help, to reach others—but her core never wavered. She took on his big dreams and made them her own, though her quiet and steady nature meant she rarely let on just how much she embraced them.
Her passion for service extended into education. She began as a home economics teacher in the inner city, later becoming the principal of a school where 90% of the students were minorities. I can only imagine how much her faith was tested there, but she never wavered. She was determined, resilient, and deeply committed to giving those kids the same kind of faith in themselves that she had in God.
Despite her best efforts, I didn’t follow in her religious footsteps. When I was a teenager, I went through a period of rebellion. If I thought about God at all, it was to blame him for my unhappiness. Mom tried to reach me, to counsel me, but every solution seemed to end with faith, something I couldn’t embrace. I was her last hope for raising a Christian son, and I know I disappointed her.
The turning point for us came when I was fourteen. My oldest brother, her firstborn, was murdered. That was a loss so deep, so incomprehensible, that I wonder how her heart survived it. But Mom held on to her faith, even as I drifted further away.
I’d love to say that I pulled myself together after that, but I didn’t. I was too lost in my own teenage angst. Our relationship never fully recovered after that, not in the same way it had been when I was younger. We peaked when I was a boy—when she was the center of my universe, when I shadowed her every step.
Some of my fondest memories are from when I was eight years old. Mom was in a car accident that left her in the hospital, and I never left her side. I would spend my days searching the fields for wildflowers and four-leaf clovers to bring to her bedside, hoping they would bring a smile to her face.
As time has passed, especially after she left us five years ago, my appreciation for all she did has only grown. I’m proud of the way she lived her life, proud of the way she took in children who had nowhere else to go, proud of her deep commitment to feeding and sheltering strangers, and proud of the way she remained true to her beliefs, even when they didn’t align with my own.
I think back often to those simpler times—when life was innocent, when she was my world. I long to return to those days when we picked wild berries together, bringing them home to bake into pies. In those moments, everything made sense, and I felt so deeply connected to her.
Her strength and faith gave her the ability to touch so many lives. She may not have turned me into the Christian son she hoped for, but I know I carry with me her lessons of kindness, resilience, and unwavering love.