“Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being’s heart a love of wonder; the sweet amazement at the stars and star-like things and thoughts; the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what comes next, and the joy in the game of life.” ~ Samuel Ullman

Yesterday I heard four things about mothers that I thought were interesting and not necessarily related. The first was that some woman who is 63 years old just gave birth. The second was that another woman in Italy just gave birth to a 22 pound baby. The third was that Michelle Duggar has recently announced that she will be giving birth in the winter to her 18th child. And the fourth is that someone has recently figured out that a stay-at-home mom’s duties are monetarily valued at over $117,000.00 a year. (I figured that if you are also a homeschooling mom and add in a median teacher’s salary that it would boost that number to around $170,000.00. ) Bring on the chocolate.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and judging by the number of wide-eyed children with five dollar bills waving in their fingers as they wander through my local Wal-Mart, the moms in my town will be well-remembered. Whether they gave birth to toddlers or preemies, have zero dollars or a million dollars in the bank, have one child or one dozen children, are young or, as my son says old-lady-Fresca-drinking old, tomorrow they will be honored with flowers, candy, bath powder, clothes they would never choose or lunch at the Sirloin Stockade.

Last Mother’s Day was my first one on this blog and I recognized it by sharing the story of my birth mother on a podcast. Continuing what I hope will be a tradition, this year I thought I would tell you two stories about being a mother that reflect the incredible ability moms have to express the fact that human life is sacred and that a person is a person no matter how small or how old.

My mom came to live with us 14 years ago. My father died in the hospital while she was staying with us after he had a stroke and she never went home. When she came, our older boys gave her their room and moved in with the three little boys….5 sons in 2 bunk beds and a trundle. It was crowded but no one minded enough to really complain. We painted her room her favorite color of blue, brought her reading chair and bedroom furniture along, and began an adventure in multi-generational living that I had no experience or knowledge of before I lived it.

During the first years she was here, my mom was able to go just about anywhere we did. We all went to church, out for lunch, and on family vacations. She had not traveled much, as my dad really hated going very far from his home and his garden. But my mom loved piling into the van and driving to homeschooling conferences or on field trips with us. She flew to both Florida and California for our older sons’ weddings and still talks about how much she loved the sunshine states.

She was also thrilled to be a part of all the planning of our daughter’s wedding, from the sewing of the dress to the cooking for several hundred guests. She enjoyed all the details of the flowers and fruit slushies and the tiny handmade gift boxes. She still talks about the three sweet flower girls. Often she sat around the dining room table, not really doing a thing but soaking in the girl moments. She recalled her own wedding, her navy suit, of traveling by train to Chicago for her honeymoon, the bridal glow still on her face as she talked about it.

We have often joked about homeschooling six children and one grandma because that is really what has happened. As the three younger boys learned to read, she would patiently listen to them read out loud to her. When Joe went through his paper family and house phase, she diligently cut out whatever he drew and taped it to her wall. I still will hear her reading to one of them from a poetry book and look through her door to see a big strapping boy-man stretched out on the floor listening to her. She loves to read about whatever we are currently studying and the past few months have been especially enjoyable for her as we have watched several documentaries on World War 2, often stopping so she can add things to the discussion like “I remember when they hanged Mussolini upside down” or the words to a love song. “Kiss me once, and kiss me twice, and kiss me once again,” she sang several times and I knew she was thinking of my dad, remembering him as the dashing 20 year old with the floppy curls in uniform.

More than anything she looks forward to family devotions in the evenings and is certainly Clay’s most attentive listener. We have been reading through the Old Testament and she has had so many unanswerable questions and really good insights, some of them hilarious. A few weeks ago she got started on a circumcision tangent that had us in uncontrollable laughter! But sharing this time with her has been precious to me and listening to her pray has humbled me and made me so thankful for a mother who has loved the Lord for most of her 86 years.

During the past few years, she has started to show signs of dementia, remembering things that happened to her 70 years ago but forgetting what she just ate for lunch. She doesn’t like to leave the house because she is so unsure of her footing and whether or not she will be able to locate a bathroom quickly. She is content with a stack of good books and she continues to write in a journal every day. Her handwriting is large now but she writes to help herself remember. It is hard to watch and to know that she is slipping away, a little at a time, and that one day she will fade away forever.

So tomorrow I will make something she really likes for dinner, like pot roast and hot rolls and Under-the-Sea Jello salad. I will give her chocolates and bath powder and probably a new book. I will bake a three-layer lemon cake and serve it with her favorite vanilla-orange sherbet swirl ice cream. If we are lucky, she will recite a poem from memory or will sing a stanza of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in Latin as our dinner entertainment. And I will thank the Lord that He has seen fit to give me the gift of another year with my mom.