Three things my Parents did right.

Jen, over at “Et tu?” is hosting a group writing contest on the topic “Three things my Parents did right.”

So here are mine:

1. Pray. My mother is a faithful woman of prayer. For as long as I can remember she has made the time to pray first thing in the morning, alone, in her room. She prays the rosary, she uses her favorite prayer books, she uses some scripture. But most importantly she prays for a long list of intentions that people give her all of the time.

She has done this even when she was working full time and getting her two daughters to school. She did this even when her smart-ass teenage daughters made fun of her for doing it. She did it when things looked really dark and grim for our little family. She did it during times of sadness and times of great happiness. She has been amazingly consistent and faithful.

By doing that, I knew that my mom would always pray for me, even when I felt that I was far away from God myself. I knew that God would always remember me because my mother was always reminding Him about me. When times were hard, or scary, or overwhelming, I turned to prayer because my mom had shown me how. And now that I am middle aged, the laugh is on me because I now hope to become the woman of prayer that my mom has always been all along!

2. My mom swallowed her pride. My grandmother ABSOLUTELY DID NOT WANT MY MOTHER TO MARRY MY FATHER. My grandmother turned out to be right of course, but at the time my mother would not listen. She married my dad almost literally over my grandmother’s dead body. Then almost three years later she was back with a toddler daughter (me) and pregnant (my sister). That must have been extremely hard to do. I don’t think my grandmother could resist having the opportunity to say, “I told you so” probably more than once. Yet because my mother returned to her parents home, my sister and I had great childhoods! We were loved and cared for to the extreme by wonderful grandparents (and my bachelor uncle!). We had opportunities and activities that we never would have been able to have if my mom had tried to go it alone as a single parent. The older I get the more I appreciate the sacrifice of my mother and my grandparents for what they gave us.

3. My family encouraged reading. There were books and newspapers all over the house. My mother always had a couple of books going at the same time. We were encouraged to read and to go to the library as soon as we could sound out words. But what I especially remember about my mother is that she would tell me the most interesting stories on the way to my dance class of other activities. Some of them were fiction, some of them were true, but they were all fascinating. That story telling planted the seed in me to be able to learn, read and know stories like that for myself. It’s a gift that I hope to pass on to my own children.

Thanks Jen for the opportunity to write about this. See the wonderful accounts from other bloggers over at Jen’s place.

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