A Tribute to My Mother

Mom ("Gram")
1918 - 2007
The most unselfish person I’ve ever known

My mother was the most unselfish person I’ve ever known, and I’m not just saying that because I’m her son.
She oozed a Christ-like unselfishness that is rare today. Let me explain.
She had no HD TV, entertainment center or mp3 player. The only TV we ever had was an old used one that Bill gave Ed (my twin) and me when we were kids. We rigged up a make shift antenna and the picture was so good that we knew where the puck was by which direction the players were going). It lasted for a few years but was never replaced. The only stereo she ever had was the antique one with an 8 track tape deck, which she got from a lady who was getting rid of it.
Entertainment was not her life; she was too busy doing stuff for other people. Here are a few examples:
• Knitting socks, mittens and (as I learned in an email from a missionary friend) even teddy bears.
• Making pies, cakes, breads etc. for bake sales.
• Giving money to her kids and grandkids to help with school and other worthwhile projects.
• Making quilts. I cannot recall or begin to count them all, but I know that each grand child got a personal one made with love and care by ‘Gram’.

Need I say more? No. but I have two more stories.
• Growing up we had plenty of baseballs and baseball gloves but no footballs. Dad was not a fan of football, but all the kids at school were playing football so we wanted one. Mom was going to town to buy school supplies that Ed and I needed, so we asked her to get a football also. Ed and I made a bet with ourselves that she’d forget the football, but when she got home she had the bright new football. …but no school supplies.
• Supper time. It was common in our home to have seven mouths around the table. You do the math: four boys, one girl, Mom and Dad. There was usually desert but pie only cuts into six pieces. (Why not eight? Don’t go there. In our family an eighth of a pie is not a serving. It’s an insult.) Mom would be the one to go without, and she said this more than once: “I’ll have bread and jam; it tastes just as good as apple pie to me.”

My mother was the most unselfish person I’ve ever known.