Sentimental Journey A good mother
0 Comments | Daily Record; Wooster, Ohio, Jun 30, 2010 | by Lydia Gehring
She loved fashionable shoes, and had quite a collection, in size 4 1/2. She loved the color blue so much that she painted the interior of her first house entirely blue. She loved the blue sky and fluffy clouds. She loved glass bottles in cobalt blue and ruby red. She displayed them in the window of her second blue kitchen, where she admired the sun casting beams of rainbow light upon the floor. She loved reading biographies of famous politicians, like Richard Nixon. Her husband was once chairman of the democratic party. She was once a ballroom dancing instructor. She loved little white dogs and carefully painted fingernails. She loved dictionaries and used one often. She loved Emily Post. She loved an artistically- set table. She loved her natural silver hair. She loved her garden and enjoyed her membership in a garden club. She hosted our wedding reception in her own backyard garden. On our 21st anniversary, we chose what she would wear for the very last time.
I guess you could say I was lucky to have Martha as my mother-in- law. Not that we always saw things eye-to-eye. After all, I am a democrat who doesn’t particularly care for blue or beige, her other favorite color. But I knew I had a comrade-in-arms, someone who loved my children almost as much as I did.
When I was dating John, Martha took me to look at diamonds before he did. I figured that was a true stamp of approval. “Tell me what you’d like,” she said as she gestured toward the diamonds in the locked jewelry store cases. When he proposed a few months later, she said, “Just call me Mother.” So I did.
Her health was a battle for as long as I can remember. She had heart issues. She suffered cardiac arrest shortly after bypass surgery. That was when my son was 2 and my daughter a newborn. She fought her way back, even when the doctors told us she had no chance. I knew why. She just loved those babies.
I remember my husband’s phone call, just two weeks ago. Mother had fallen and fractured a hip, he said. She lived in the assisted living wing of the care center where she’d moved 18 months before due to declining health. We knew she had a tough road ahead of her if the hip was surgically repaired. But the alternative was unthinkable. Two hospitals OK’d the procedure. But still, we worried.
A few days before surgery, my husband and I took the children to see her at the Cleveland Clinic. She was in pain. She was confused. She was lonely. But she didn’t complain.
My daughter and I gave her a sponge bath. We washed her hair, too. We spooned beef stroganoff into her mouth while my husband rubbed her size 4 1/2 feet. She sipped root beer and nibbled chocolate ice cream
house paint colors
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