Legacies

My mom, Aunt Kathie, Sister Tina, and Me 1972

“Shhh…. Mommy’s sleeping”, I whispered to Daddy as he smiled at me. He was holding me up to see her while family and friends quietly filed into the funeral home in the small Illinois town. I had just turned five years old, and it’s one of my earliest memories. I don’t remember anything else from that day, but I was told that I ran to greet everyone to share the secret that my mommy was sleeping. It wasn’t until the service started when reality pierced my understanding of the moment, and I was carried outside to spare everyone the cries of an inconsolable little girl. By some divine mercy, I had been granted enough time to etch a handful of precious memories of her into my mind before that day – a day that would alter the course of not just my own life, but my sister's, and ripple through generations of our family.

This may sound like a sad story, but I assure you that it is ultimately a story of God’s faithfulness. On that day, God knew the rest of the story. It was already written, and the ending is still the same. We will see her again. But, boy, the revealing of His mercies on this journey is where the joy is found. He knew that little girl would become a mom one day, and He knew when every woman in her future would show up to share wisdom, and how all the pieces would fit together to teach us about the greatest love that exists outside of His love for us – the love a mother has for her child.  

Our mom was the oldest of 8 children, and Grandma and Grandad had already suffered the loss of another daughter to cancer ten years before. Grandma once told me that she stayed in bed for days after losing her other daughter, but this time she had no choice but to keep going. Our dad was still in the Navy, so at 60 years old our grieving grandparents found themselves parenting 5 and 10 year old girls.

I was heading into kindergarten that same year, and I remember Grandma walking me in to meet the teachers. Even at that young age I knew what their hushed conversation was about. School was close enough to walk to and from, so she would meet me at the end of the street after school even though I insisted I could walk by myself. My after-school snack was Ritz crackers with cream cheese and sliced apple, and I would watch Gilligan’s Island and play Barbies until my big sister got home from school. Grandma’s words “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” stuck with me, and I still love Ritz crackers with cream cheese, albeit with a spicy jam on top.

I have read reports by psychologists and other experts who say that children have a greater sense of awareness and are able to pick up on energies that often go unnoticed by adults. I clearly remember lying in bed next to my sister one night, the house was quiet, and I was wide awake. I heard something. I whispered as loud as I could to Grandma, and I am sure she was unprepared for what I told her. I whispered, “I hear angels singing.” To this day I can still hear it, and I know that’s what it was. It wasn’t until I became a mom that it crossed my mind how she must have felt, or in fact how our mom felt knowing she wouldn’t be able to watch her daughters grow up. She was so strong in her faith that she shared it with everyone – even with the doctors and nurses who treated her in her final days in the hospital. She didn’t want to leave us, but she was ready to go to heaven.

Our mom’s youngest sister, our sweet Aunt Kathie, was also very present during the time after our mom’s passing, and she, along with our uncles, have always kept us under their wings. We spent a lot of time at Aunt Kathie’s family farm where we rode horses, picked green beans in the garden (begrudgingly), had bean-snapping contests, played with kittens, fed chickens, and, remember this….watched her father-in-law make apple butter in a big copper kettle outside the barn. This little tidbit of information will later play a big part in my life.

Many women along the way unknowingly had an impact on me, whether it was my aunts, the mothers of my friends, teachers, or as I got older, coworkers, church friends, or even the mom whose kids I babysat who then invited me to move in with them when things were tough at home. Our dad was a good man, and we always wanted to make him proud and never doubted his love for us. He remarried, and we lived what seemed like a picture-perfect life, but it was very short-lived. After their divorce, it was just the three of us. Daddy worked 2nd shift at Caterpillar, and while we still spent a lot of time at Grandma’s house, the bond between me and my sister Tina grew even stronger.

We’re still each other’s biggest fans, constantly fascinated by how alike yet how different we are. As young girls, we walked to school together, rode bicycles, played piano, harmonized while singing hymns at church, recorded our favorite Top 40 songs on cassette tapes, cooked fabulous dinners such as fish sticks and macaroni and cheese, and she was the one I crawled into bed with to tell her I had just asked Jesus into my heart when I was 7 years old. She hugged me and we cried together. I was devastated when she went off to college. I was a freshman in high school, and I was completely lost without her. I stayed with Grandma and Grandad on and off again while Daddy, who, as a younger retired veteran, struggled to find work after the Caterpillar layoffs and stayed with friends in different places looking for work. He did everything from bagging groceries, running a donut shop, to driving a bakery truck. The summer after my freshman year of high school, he informed me we were moving to South Carolina—and that he would be getting married to a woman we’d never met. Tina never made the move with us since she was still in college, so I remember crying all the way to South Carolina, feeling more alone than ever.

It hurts me to even think about those next several years. I was an angry and fiercely independent teenager, so life in this new setting was not working out. To put it nicely, there was a personality clash with his wife, and I found myself desperate to leave. I was babysitting for a family who lived in our neighborhood, and they offered me their attic to live in. I remember how defeated Daddy was when I left. I know I broke his heart, but this opportunity was my lifeline. I am still so grateful for this family, and Debby was like a mom to me. This transition, however, brought Daddy and I closer together, and we were able to spend time together as I attended college classes and worked enough to be able to move into an apartment with roommates. Life seemed to be improving until one morning I received a call. Daddy and I had planned to have lunch that day, but he had suffered a major heart attack that morning. He was gone. Just like that. At the age of 22, I remember feeling like an orphan, alone in this state with my family hundreds of miles away.

Now there were two big holes in my heart.  Little did I know that in a matter of weeks I would meet my future husband and my soon-to-be new family. Everyone was concerned that in my grief I had jumped into a relationship blindly in my search for comfort. I kept his family at arm’s length, and I especially did not want to make myself vulnerable to his mom. She was an amazing mom, but my walls were pretty solid. I learned so much from her in our 25 years as in-laws before she passed. She considered me one of her children, and I called her “mom”. Her health deteriorated, but she remained as the tie that bound the family together. She was a treasure, and I loved her.

So, what legacies do I associate with these moms who played such important roles in my life? A legacy of faith from my mom, a legacy of service to her family from my Grandma, a legacy of hard work from Aunt Kathie, a legacy of compassion from Debby, a legacy of strength from my mother-in-law, and a legacy of love from all of them. And my sister? We’re still creating our legacies with our shared memories, shared stories, and shared respect. There is no doubt that she will ultimately have the biggest impact on my life, as my sister and my friend. We have always figured life out together, and we’re still figuring it out together. Only now, as moms. I think our mom would be proud.