An Interview With my Mom

Happy Mother's Day everyone!  Last year I interviewed my dad for Father's day.  You can click here to read it.  I decided I wanted to interview my mom as well.  I asked many of the same questions I asked my dad last year and again asked my siblings for any questions they had for Mom.  On those questions I will write who the question is from above it.

Motherhood

1.  How old were you when you became a mom?  I was 23-the same age as my mother was when I was born, and the same age Jessica was when she had Katie.

2.  What were your feelings when Jessica was born?  Overwhelming joy, love, and gratitude.  I was so happy to be blessed with such a perfect, beautiful baby girl.

3.  What is your best memory of being a mom?  I have a very difficult time with superlatives.  How can anyone single out one incident and label it "best"?  It's impossible.
That being said, many of my best memories center on our Christmas Eve program.  when you were all small, I loved having you gather around on that night to sing of Jesus' birth.  Now that you're all grown up, when we get together on Christmas Eve to sing and read Luke's words, I'm hit with a flood of memories of other Christmas Eves, starting when Jessica was Mary and Matthew played all the other parts except for Baby Jesus, who was played by the doll my brother Dennis named Baby George, and going on until your children dressed up and acted out the Christmas story.

4.  What has been the hardest part of being a mom?  Another superlative!
I suppose you mean besides morning sickness, labor and delivery, thousands of diaper-changes, nights with very little sleep, days spent caring for sick children, worrying when things weren't going right in my children's lives, staying up waiting for teenagers to come home and hoping they'd be safe, or letting go as you all grew up and needed to live your own lives?
I'll give you two vague, but all-encompassing, answers:
     1.  Looking back with regret at all the things I failed to do or did wrong.
     2.  Watching as my children made decisions that I feared would not make them happy.

5.  What has been the best part of being a mom?  Watching my tiny helpless babies grow into competent adults who make good decisions and who are raising their own children in truth and light.

6.  What has surprised you the most about being a mom?  Just how dang much hard work motherhood involves!  I remember being about ten years old and thinking that when I was a mother, I could spend all my time reading books and eating chocolate-covered cherries.  That's just not how things turned out---Even though I'll confess to reading a lot of books and eating more than my share of chocolate.

(This next question is from Jessica)
7.  Is there anything you would have done differently as a mother?  If I were doing it all over again, I hope I could spend less time worrying and more time having fun.

8.  What is your best advice on being a mom?  I'm going to turn to the scriptures for that.

• "Trust in the Lord with all thy heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will direct thy paths"  (Proverbs 3:5-6)
• "Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good. . ."  (D&C 90:21)
• "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God"  (D&C 18:10)

9.  What are the keys to strengthening your family?  Understanding that families are central-and essential- to God's plan.  Loving your husband and children.  Honoring and sustaining the prieshood.  Doing everything you can to ensure your home is "tight like unto a dish."  Being strong yourself.

10.  Share a memory of your mother.  When my mother was expecting her second child, she told me I was going to have a little sister.  We all know how that turned out.

She went into labor in the middle of the night, and they put me in the car and rushed to the hospital.  By the time they got there, she was more than ready to deliver.  Dad hurried her into the hospital, leaving me asleep in the back seat of the car.  I woke up sometime before he came back, and rather than being worried or afraid that I was in the car in the middle of the night by myself, I climbed into the front seat and pretended to drive until he came back.  He told me I had a little brother and carried me into the hospital to see Mom.  

She was on a gurney in the hall when we arrived.  When I asked why she hadn't got a little sister for me like she said she was going to, she said that the nurses thought I would like a little brother best.  I was crushed.  I was not yet three years old and didn't have the words to express it, but I wondered why she'd listened to the nurses instead of to me.  (I pictured the nurse going into a storage closet with boxes on all the shelves that had babies in them and picking out a boy for us-even though I had distinctly ordered a girl.)

I must have talked a lot about wanting Dennis to be a girl because one day when he was less than a year old and hadn't yet had his hair cut, she swore me to secrecy and then put his hair up in bobby pins before he went down for a nap.  When he woke up, she combed out his lovely curls, and we pretended he was a sister for the rest of the afternoon.

11.  What do you love about each of your kids?

Jessica-I love her intelligence and self-confidence.  She's so creative and has the ability to make things happen.  I remember how she took over at Megan's wedding reception when the cake arrived looking not at all like we expected it to.  Within minutes, she'd created a masterpiece.  It seems like Jessica can do absolutely anything she sets her mind to-and do it incredibly well.  I also love that even though she has a mater's degree in English, she still occasionally asks me a grammar question.

Matthew-When Matthew was a little boy, I thought he was willful, stubborn, and obstinate.  Once he set his mind on a course, it was impossible to sway him.  I'm glad I failed to eliminate those qualities from his personality; they are exactly what he needed to get to where he is today.  I discovered God didn't give him those characteristics to try me, but because He knew Matthew would need them.

Charissa-is my friend.  During the time when Dad was in Utah and I was in West Virginia with a house that no one wanted to buy, Charissa and I were the only adults in the house.  I leaned on her a lot during those months, and she became one of my best friends.  I missed her so much when we finally moved to Utah and rejoiced when she and Don chose Weber State.  When they moved to Cumberland, she told me she wasn't very good at meeting new people and doing new things; I was shocked because often when I have to do something like that, I pretend I'm Charissa and it helps me make it through.

Sarah-has a unique capacity to find joy in life and to see everything as a blessing.  She once told me that since Heavenly Father loves her and only wants to bless her, as long as she's doing what's right, whatever happens is a blessing.  For her, being blessed is a self-fulfilled prophecy:  because she sees herself as blessed, she is.  I also admire her calmness and her ability to stay on top of the chaos.  I love watching her with her children and seeing all the good things she does for others.

Benjamin-will always be the answer to a prayer.  when I was growing up we had neighbors who had six children.  They always seemed like an almost perfect family to me, and I set my heart on having six children.  For a long time it looked like our family was going to end with Sarah, but we prayed, and prayed, and prayed.  Sometimes I think it took him so long to get here because I needed a breather.  During some difficult times when Benjamin was a teenager, I decided that God just needed me to remember how much I'd wanted him-even with all the problems he caused.  Now I love seeing him with Sarina and Lizzie.  He's a constant reminder that prayers are heard and answered.

Megan-is Megan.  She knows who she is and what she wants and goes after it with faith and determination.  That's one of the reasons she's such a good pianist; I started teaching her when I was alone with the children in West Virginia, but life just got too stressful for me, and she had very few piano lessons.  No problem:  she sat down at the piano and taught herself.  Her focus on what she wanted sometimes made her appear self-centered when she was growing up, but as an adult, she's used them to get a degree and tackle a demanding job without neglecting her marriage or her children.

Rebecca-does what's right simply because it is right.  She follows the Spirit wherever it leads.  She's an incredible mother who loves her children and spends time teaching and playing with them every day.  Despite the pressures of having two small children, she's wise enough to take time out for herself.  She also has time for me.  I hear from her almost every week and know what's going on in her life.  That's a real blessing.

John-When John was in elementary school, someone came to his class and taught them about color-coded personality traits.  John came home that day and announced, "I'm a yellow:  I just want to have fun."  (Cue the Cyndi Lauper soundtrack.)  John's best quality is that because he loves people, he expects them to love him back, and they do.

Life

1.  What is your best childhood memory?  Pushing my brother Dennis off the roof-and that memory probably didn't even happen.

2.  Did you ever sneak out of the house growing up?  No.  But when we had slumber parties and slept out in the yard, we always sneaked off to wander the neighborhood after midnight.  Nothing dangerous, but we enjoyed pretending we were walking on the edge.

3.  What was your favorite thing to go out and do as a teenager?  Drive up and down Washington Boulevard along with half the other teenagers in Ogden.  Can you imagine anything more boring?

(The next three are from John)
4.  Did you and Dad really meet in a bar?  No.

5.  Did you and Dad really elope?  Tell us about your wedding.  Yes.  We were in Denver.  When Dad came back from Ethiopia he had orders to a small army post in Colorado Springs.  He drove to Utah and we went to Colorado together to check it out.  One of my best friends from high school was living in Denver and we stayed with her.  When he got to Colorado Springs, he was met with orders for Fort Belvoir, Virginia.  Knowing that I wouldn't be able to go with him, we decided to get married before he left.  There's not much to tell about the wedding:  my friend had a friend who knew a minister, and he agreed to marry us.

6.  Being a member of the Church, what was it like dating a non-member?  Would you have still married him if he wasn't going to join the church?  There were no date-able members in Addis Ababa, and when we started dating we didn't intend to fall in love.  As we spent more time together, he realized that being LDS was much more important to me than being a Baptist was to him, so he decided to get baptized.
I knew he didn't have a testimony and knew that he didn't understand the importance of the covenant he was going to make.  I had thought seriously about telling him not to be baptized, but when we were alone the night before he was baptized, I felt an incredible peace come over me.  I didn't know it then, but I realize now that the Lord, who truly does see the end from the beginning, knew that he would become converted and bless the lives of many people through his faith.

(This next question is from Charissa)
7.  Tell me about yours and Dad's first kiss?  I cannot even remember our first kiss.  I have to say the kisses since then, including the one just a few minutes ago, are much more memorable.

8.  What is your favorite thing about Dad?  Every day he tells me I'm beautiful.  Now after more then forty years I almost believe him.

(These next two are from Matt)
9.  Besides chocolate, what is your favorite food?  Just about anything that isn't good for me.

10.  To help out your kids. . .What do you want for your birthday and for Christmas?  Cold, hard cash!  (Just make sure it weighs less than a pound)

11.  Where is the favorite place you've lived?  Italy-especially Vicenza.  That was such a good time in our life.

12.  Is there anywhere you haven't been that you hope to go?  
I'd like to

• visit Greenland,
• take a train across Canada, 
• see where my grandfather lived in New Zealand,
• hunt for meteorites in Antarctica, and
• hike around Devil's Tower,

But, I'd give all that up to stand in the Celestial room of any temple with all of my children.

(This next question is from Jessica)

13.  If you hadn't lived the life you chose/chose you, what would you be doing instead?  Good question.  I'll begin by saying that I believe I chose my life.  There were, of course, other choices I could have made.  I believe any of them would have included marriage, church, and children, and I always knew that I wasn't going to spend my life in one place.  Having said that, sometimes I think I'd be an unmarried school teacher like my friend Jill.  Other times, I wonder what kind of an astrophysicist I would have made.  

In any event, although the particulars might have changed, I hope the important things ould have remained the same.  

14.  What is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?  Sorry-anything I say here will eliminate the niceness of a hundred other nice things.  

15.  What would you say has been your greatest accomplishment?  You!

16.  What are the top three things you stand for?  I'm having a very hard time limiting it to three.  What keeps coming to mind is the Beehive motto from when I was in Mutual.  We memorized this and said it during our weekly class meetings:  

     On my honor each day I will

     have faith, 

     seek knowledge,

     safeguard health,

     honor womanhood,

     understand beauty,

     value work, 

     love truth,

     taste the sweetness of service,

     feel joy.

I don't know if other people think I stand for these things, but after 50+ years, it's still in my mind, and they are what I'd like to stand for.  

17.  What is some advice for your family?  When some of you were very small, you sang, "Teach me all that I much know to live with Him someday."  Then President Kimball suggested changing the words of that song to "Teach me all that I must do to live with Him someday."

This was fitting because although what we know influenced what we do, just knowing the truth isn't enough.  we have to do something about it.  

I'm going to suggest a further revision of that song.  In our family, let's sing, "Teach me all that I must be to live with Him someday."

What you do determines who you will become.  You are good enough to be whatever you want to be.  Everything you need to be happy is already inside of you.  Find it!  Be the person, your parents, and your Father in Heaven wants you to be.

(This next question is from Jessica)

18.  What do you hope people will remember about you in 100 years?  I would be very happy if some of the things I've written were still in the family 100 years from now.  Jessica, maybe you can be responsible for making that possible?  

19.  What do you know now that you wish you knew then?  A Joni Mitchell song says, in part, "I've looked at clouds/love/life from both sides now.  From up and down, from win and lose, from give and take."

I could make a similar statement.  I have looked at life and love (and even clouds) from many angles.  I love the perspective that I have now.  When I was young, I didn't know what it was like to be old.  Now that I'm older, I remember exactly what it's like to be young.  That makes it possible for me to identify with my children and grandchildren, our seminary students, and the young missionaries we work with.  No matter where they are in life, I can say "Been there.  Done that!"  I understand.  The ability to see things as they really are is a blessing in my life. Too bad it took me so long to get to this point.

20-Describe yourself in one word.  Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.  If I can only have one word, I want it to be a long one.

Mom, you are the most amazing women I know.  You are loving, caring, smart, giving, beautiful, righteous, faithful, and so much more.  I am so grateful for the wonderful example you have always been in my life.  You are such a wonderful person and I am so blessed to have you as my mother.  Thank you for all you do.  You're doing a good job.