Years ago, when we had a big family gathering in our West Virginia hometown, Mom had prepared a meal for us. She decided to serve it buffet style. The first person to go through the line was one of my nieces. She scooped some rice onto her plate and then beside the rice she put the stew meat and gravy. Back in the line, craning her neck to see, was our short little mother. She saw my niece’s plate with the meat beside the rice. Mom could not restrain herself.
“The meat goes ON the rice!” she exclaimed.
There was the typical eye rolling and many knowing smiles between us as Mom still felt that need to supervise this detail…a very important detail to her. In my family, this comment and story has become one of our favorite sayings when we want something to be done a certain way.
The meat goes ON the rice!
Mom’s particular ways permeated our lives. She was and still is the most energetic and organized woman I have ever known. It wasn’t easy back in the 50’s to have four children in five years. Then came Kathryn, our caboose, three years later.
Her ways of managing our home were as precise as she could make them during those very hectic years. She had baskets of ironing for us to do with a piece of paper in each basket that held a name of one of us girls. We had our chores to do and the day on which to do them. She even taught us the best way to load dishes into the kitchen sink after dinner. Wash the glasses first, then the silverware put just so along with the plates, and so forth.
She taught us how to fold laundry, including those dreaded fitted sheets. Sorry, Mom, for the mess I still make with those sheets today. Sometimes I feel like she’s craning her little neck from heaven, watching me struggle with that sheet and just shaking her head.
But over the years, with a family of my own, I do wonder how Mom did it all. She made all our clothes, often late at night after we had gone to bed. I still remember our kitchen table full of homemade rolls, cookies, pizza crusts, and so much more. Our freezers were full of those goodies, ready to be used at a moment’s notice. She canned and froze fruits and veggies from their garden. All of this while working full time after we were all in school, eventually supervising the school lunch programs in thirteen West Virginia counties.
Mom’s ways of reaching beyond our home into the lives of others was amazing. Our home was always open to our friends, to groups, and to pastors and missionaries. In later years, she knit hundreds of Christmas stockings for so many people as well as her beautiful quilts. She visited the sick, usually with flowers she had grown or food she had made.
Mom’s ways of offering help to the struggling really spoke to me. She didn’t judge those who had made mistakes in life but instead looked for ways she could help them and love them through their hard times.
But the most impacting of Mom’s ways, the one for which I am most thankful, is that every morning she made sure that we began the day in God’s word together as a family around our breakfast table. Dad was already at work on those early mornings so she would lead us in reading Our Daily Bread and praying together.
Throughout her life she consistently exhibited that the number one value in our lives was to live our lives for Christ and to trust Him in every situation. We saw her follow her own advice without wavering as she cared for Dad until cancer took his life. She continued her faithfulness even as Alzheimer’s took away her memory, her spunk, her humor and wit.
Some of the last words she ever spoke was to softly sing:
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus;
Sweetest name I know.
Fills my every longing,
Keeps me singing as I go.”
So Mom, I not only honor you on this Mother’s Day but on every day as your ways continue to influence my own life…and hopefully the lives of our children.
And for you, I will make sure that the meat goes ON the rice!