I was taking a writing course in 2002. One of the assignments was to write a short piece about a person I knew or had known, so I wrote this about my mother and sent her a copy. She died on her birthday, Nov. 20, 2005. She was 79.
SNAPSHOTS
My father called her by his pet name, Bunny. Many people know her by her given name, Beulah, or more respectfully, Mrs. Mitchell. She is Grandma to crowds of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, some of them not even related to her. I call her “Mom.”
She’s not as tall as she used to be. Shoulder length hair, once jet black, is now gray and turning whiter each year. Blue eyes, piercing at times to the depths of a young boy’s soul, are slowly giving way to glaucoma, even with the mitigating effects of modern medicine. Hands, gnarled and rough in earlier times from the hard work of maintaining a large household, have softened. Her heart, which has always been loving, has simply grown larger with age.
Mom, now 76, lives by herself in the house where she and Dad lived since they bought the place in 1949. The house, four bedrooms up and one down, with miles and miles of Pennsylvania countryside around it, was perfect for raising a large family. Babies came with regularity, five girls and three boys over twenty years. With cousins, friends, and neighbors also in residence, she gained a vast experience at the skill known as “mothering”. Today her flock has scattered, but there are enough kids nearby so that she still gets plenty of practice.
Fred, her husband of almost 51 years, (Dad, to me) was severely crippled with rheumatoid arthritis for the last years of his life. Mom nursed him faithfully through those years, often without any assistance which must have strained her endurance. Times were rare, though, when I heard her (or him) complain about the hand dealt. That nursing spirit still shows because she acts in the same way for others, at least two that I know of, really old women, which, of course, she’s not.
One time Mom gashed her hand on a broken Mason jar while washing dishes and almost passed out from the pain and loss of blood on the way to the emergency room. She was there when my brother, age 10, was struck by a car, comforting and calming him even though his right leg was smashed in two or three places. Both times she exhibited personal self-control which had been developed over the years dealing with crises from trifles like skinned knees to serious life-threatening situations.
My wife and I have tried to get her to fly to Florida for a visit, but it’s wasted effort. She won’t, especially after 9-11. Driving that far by herself is out of the question and cooperating with someone else for an extended trip probably won’t happen. Besides, if she left home, she might miss something important—or it might miss her. We stay in touch by writing letters and talking on the telephone.
She will never grace the cover of People or Time. The President won’t ever call her. World-wide recognition is not for her. It’s not important to me. She is my mother and I love her, which, of course, is all that really matters.
She’s not as tall as she used to be. Shoulder length hair, once jet black, is now gray and turning whiter each year. Blue eyes, piercing at times to the depths of a young boy’s soul, are slowly giving way to glaucoma, even with the mitigating effects of modern medicine. Hands, gnarled and rough in earlier times from the hard work of maintaining a large household, have softened. Her heart, which has always been loving, has simply grown larger with age.
Mom, now 76, lives by herself in the house where she and Dad lived since they bought the place in 1949. The house, four bedrooms up and one down, with miles and miles of Pennsylvania countryside around it, was perfect for raising a large family. Babies came with regularity, five girls and three boys over twenty years. With cousins, friends, and neighbors also in residence, she gained a vast experience at the skill known as “mothering”. Today her flock has scattered, but there are enough kids nearby so that she still gets plenty of practice.
Fred, her husband of almost 51 years, (Dad, to me) was severely crippled with rheumatoid arthritis for the last years of his life. Mom nursed him faithfully through those years, often without any assistance which must have strained her endurance. Times were rare, though, when I heard her (or him) complain about the hand dealt. That nursing spirit still shows because she acts in the same way for others, at least two that I know of, really old women, which, of course, she’s not.
One time Mom gashed her hand on a broken Mason jar while washing dishes and almost passed out from the pain and loss of blood on the way to the emergency room. She was there when my brother, age 10, was struck by a car, comforting and calming him even though his right leg was smashed in two or three places. Both times she exhibited personal self-control which had been developed over the years dealing with crises from trifles like skinned knees to serious life-threatening situations.
My wife and I have tried to get her to fly to Florida for a visit, but it’s wasted effort. She won’t, especially after 9-11. Driving that far by herself is out of the question and cooperating with someone else for an extended trip probably won’t happen. Besides, if she left home, she might miss something important—or it might miss her. We stay in touch by writing letters and talking on the telephone.
She will never grace the cover of People or Time. The President won’t ever call her. World-wide recognition is not for her. It’s not important to me. She is my mother and I love her, which, of course, is all that really matters.
