I wrote this back in 2014 shortly after my mother passed away.
I hear people share their earliest memories and it seems like I am a latecomer. Everything was muddled. I just say, “I must have been five.” I lump those early memories into that one fateful year, but for all I know they may have spanned three years.
So I must have been five when I registered my first memory of my mother. We lived out in the country and like most country homes at that time we had our own water well. It was right behind the house, covered by a large concrete slab and a hand-operated pump. Don’t recall the occasion, but Mom had me out on a quilt by that well and I wasn’t feeling well. I recall her grinding up a piece of aspirin in a spoon and giving me a soda. The potion worked like magic as my fever abated. But more importantly, she provided what would be a long line of fond memories, that when I was at my lowest, she was always there. She would eventually introduce me to other magic formulas such as chicken soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Another magic touch was the cure for the post-school time blues. I had a tough time in grade school. Today they give it a name – attention deficit disorder. But back then I was just a troublesome, bright and creative kid. I had a lot of seat time in the principal’s office and after such experiences I was not the happiest kid in the world. Mom had the cure – it was called a Dilly Bar. Sometimes the cure required some adjustments to the prescription, whether it was an ice cream sandwich, fudgecicle or a milk shake. Times were tough for us, and eating out was a very rare thing. Yet Mom had just enough to provide the medication at the Dairy Queen.

Then there is the “stupid” category, where you know you have a gold-star mother when she doesn’t say “I told you so.” I had several of those, but one standout moment was when I took my new Stingray banana-seat bicycle and raced down a gravel road. Well, between the loose gravel and potholes big enough to lose a dog in, I managed to bounce out of control and land with a hard thud on the road. It hurt really bad, so bad that I could hardly cry. I walked the bicycle back to the house and the last thing I remembered was collapsing when my mother opened the door.
“Stupid” #2 – when I burned my hand on the grate covering the trash can containing burning trash.
“Stupid” #3 – when I drove the pickup into a muddy field – and it was midnight!
I did not know back then, but she introduced values into my life that would not only affect my life, but that of my children as well. It was a subtle thing. Unlike others of her time and condition, she did not run from her past. She embraced it. So every summer I was shuttled from our mid-Missouri, middle-class life to Grandma’s farm in Southeast Missouri. I would join my cousins for those long, hot summer sojourns, playing with the farm kids that lived nearby. We visited their homes, ate with them and played massive softball games in the pasture. And then there were the circle of adults, all those “brothers and sisters.” You can imagine how confusing that was for a nine year old boy. I never knew a family could be so large! It would be a few years before I realized the religious aspect of that phrase.
Back home in Columbia the lesson continued, a lesson that was not spoken, nor a moral explained. The babysitters were from down the road. In contemporary parlance, they were hillbillies, the living epitome of Lil’ Abner. These were hard working people who took on construction and clerical jobs, building their own homes and awakening at some God-awful time like 5:30 in the morning to the sound of country music.
As I approached high school Mom put herself into community volunteer work with gusto. She never did anything halfway. She did not pander to religious prejudice, working with anyone who had a good heart. Through Mom I met Baptists and Catholics, Methodists and Jews. I suppose I have to blame Mom for inserting me into a Meals-on-Wheels rotation. I can’t imagine myself volunteering for such a thing. But it was there that I really learned just what “poor” meant, what “needy” really was. I met some of the loneliest people.
Again – she never had an explanation. No sermons. Just one busy woman, and I happened to be around. Some circles call that Providence. It was nothing I chose to do. I was merely appointed to the task. At that time I was not particularly enthused by this lesson, but it had eternal implications.
Grandpa died in the late 60’s and the farm had to be sold. It would be about twenty years later when I would return and behold the farm and the families I knew there. Some had gone on to do quite well, transforming rough n’ ready farmsteads into expansive farms with nice homes. But others, I suddenly realized, looked like a scene from “Brother Where Art Thou.” It was then that it dawned on me the gift my mother gave me – to treat any man or woman as an equal, with dignity and joy. In other words, to be a child.
The second gift was the broad range of friends I would encounter. It had nothing to do with wealth or education. Just common sense, to accept the best a person has to offer unconditionally. Over the years I began to realize the impact my mother had on others, not by what she said but the small things that gave greater things to people – things like Hope.
The third gift was to never forget. The reason why there are Food Banks, Meals on Wheels, Koinoinia Houses, Thrift Shops and Soup Kitchens is because we must not forget.

She never forgot her grandchildren. Never was there a grandmother who was so generous. And once again, I saw her subtly re-enforcing those values. It worked into my life as I tried to do as she had done, to not forget. It is no accident that one of her granddaughters helped open up an after-school program while she was only in high school, or that she would eventually work for Catholic Charities. I think of her every time I attend a banquet for Love INC or respond to a call to deliver furniture or clothes, or when I cook a meal at Glory Hole.
My mother stood by me when I had nothing to give. She stood by me when I seemed to be making one bad decision after another. She rejoiced with me when things turned around, and she never demanded anything in return. There is a word for that – Grace. Again, no sermons here.
If Mom had a weakness it is one that I, unfortunately, have extended to my children. She would laugh whenever I hurt myself (Yes, even when I fainted in the doorway). Her fondest memory is a remark I made once after football practice, getting into the car beaten and bruised. “Mom, they thought I was the football out there.” She loved to tell that story. But I never thought it all that funny until years later you realize that if you can’t laugh through the pain, you have little hope. I thought of her only a few nights ago when the neighbor’s dog, this yappy little curly-haired mutt, was walking down our street. I had my arms full of stuff, it was cold, it was raining and I was negotiating into my hand an electronic door-opener. This dog, for some odd reason, got it into his head to race all the way across the street, into my parking space and bite me on the leg. In my fury, I kicked him off my leg, only to see my shoe fly off as my foot came down into a puddle of water. I could only laugh!
It is in a moment like this that I suddenly, in a few nanoseconds, recall a flash of memories, of times that my mother shared with laughter, times that nobody would want to repeat. She picked that up from her mother and was unable to shed this weakness.
My mother leaves a living legacy here on earth. She is in heaven. Some say that to be in heaven you must believe this or that, be baptized, attend church regularly and do good things, or some combination thereof. I subscribe to the doctrine of C.S. Lewis, that you will be in Heaven because you find joy in being there. You will Know It! She will find Heaven a familiar place because in the space of her short time on this earth the Kingdom of God lived in her. My Mom will be most likely put to the Lord’s work. Awaiting her may be her mother, but again it may be a woman no longer old and wheel-chair bound, no longer living in a filthy, cluttered apartment, but young, strong, clean and full of joy and hope. Or it may be a Laotian, who received something from her while Mom was doing something as a matter of course, but to that woman was the kiss of God. Gosh – wouldn’t surprise me if she (a solid Protestant) was greeted by Pope John-Paul himself!
In heaven, my mother will be healed. Not only will she be released from her present infirmities, but made whole in every way. She will hope that we know that the past few years are but a moment. God will determine where she begins eternity, most likely as far away from farm work as she can get. Then again, she may fall alongside her father, gladly harvesting the wheat fields in heaven, singing “Star of Bethlehem,” being joined by all those “brothers and sisters.”
© Copyright 2023 to Eric Niewoehner