I wrote this essay about my mother for a church newsletter in 2017. It still expresses what I feel, even though she passed away in 2019. Just take it as a gentle reminder to stop and cherish the small sacred moments that we have with our loved ones–no matter who they are.
This past week I accompanied the solos of over 30 band students at Paducah Middle School on the piano. When I told my mother that her teaching me piano had finally paid off, she informed me that she would have taught me a lot more IF I HAD LET HER. And you know what? She was right. I pretty much allowed her to show me the basics of the keyboard and then balked at her giving me anymore formal lessons—even though she had several students whose parents paid her to instruct on a weekly basis. And there were many things I could have learned from her if I had been a little more patient and a little less stubborn. Mom was an incredible seamstress but I never took the time to learn to make beautiful clothes. She was a fantastic cook who rarely used a recipe, but I didn’t learn this culinary art. And she had the greenest of green thumbs and grew the most colorful gardens and flowers in the neighborhood, but I had rather sit in front of the T.V. and shell the peas and snap the beans than get hot and dirty.
But there were things that my mother taught me without her knowing. She taught me how to courageously step out and try new things when she got a job driving the bookmobile that was as big as a bread truck all over the hills and hollers of Todd County. She demonstrated how to be a worker in God’s Kingdom by teaching Sunday school, visiting the sick, and gently instructing the young preachers who would sometimes preach with zeal but not much substance as Priscilla did in Acts 18. She showed me how to be faithful and to love unconditionally as she patiently taught my father new songs to lead at church, helped him in his work of public service, and then took care of him when he suffered a spinal cord injury that confined him to a wheelchair for the last 15 years of his life. And now, as she is entering the winter season of her life, she is teaching her daughters the most important lesson of all—to trust in our Good Shepherd, and to not fear (Psalm 23).
So Mom, I regret that I refused piano lessons from you and I know I would have been a better musician if I had listened. But know that I paid attention to the LIFE LESSONS that you taught and are still teaching every day of your life, and that I am a better woman in Christ for it. And in the end, that is all that matters.