Friday's Internet Edition, 04:32 PM, July 03, 2009.
has been the best
gift to her kids
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- Mother’s Day is upon us, the moment during the year when we pause and thank the women who bore, burped and baked for us in childhood — and beyond.
Now in her 80s, my mother hasn’t quit her duties even as I’ve reached middle age. She still bakes cookies, cakes and pies for us. She’s quick with a glass of tea or an extra dollop of ice cream for the grandchildren. I can’t visit her without leaving with something in my arms — a magazine or one of her signature oatmeal cookies.
That is her nature. Always has been.
What I’ve enjoyed most in recent years are her stories of how it used to be — growing up on a remote tobacco farm at the headwaters of Bear Creek. I want to impress my boys with the information of her life before cell phones and electricity and running water. Lest the next generation grow soft, I want them to know about the grit of their grandparents and their hard-scrabble lives during the early 20th century.
My mother told me recently she felt like she had lived during the best of times. Oh, the things she has seen, and the progress that has been made …
Best of times?
She was a little girl during the Great Depression. She saw her three brothers pack and leave for service in World War II. Nearly every family in the county directly felt that war. Many buried their kinsmen. The Korean War that followed was no picnic. The losses in Iraq and Afghanistan are comparatively few. The numbers of troops involved are much smaller.
My mother’s generation knew the uncertainty of the nuclear threat of the ‘50s and ‘60s, the worry that the Soviet Union would unleash bombs upon us. The communist threat loomed very real. The ups and downs of the economy were bumpy then too.
She drew water from a well and watched her father plow with a mule. They lived far from doctors and hospitals. They walked to church and to school in mud or dust.
And they watched this country emerge as the world’s leading economy and the defender of liberty. They watched political giants and nuts come and go.
She and my father watched asphalt being topped over their dusty road and welcomed the invention of washing machines and refrigerators and televisions.
Compared to what my mother has seen, our current economic malaise seems less intimidating. Everything seems a little easier these days when viewed through the lens of the past.
If hers was the greatest generation, how will mine be remembered? Hers took up arms against tyranny and weathered crisis after crisis with a stoic resolve. They didn’t scream, “The sky is falling!” after every evening newscast.
America doesn’t need to rear a soft generation. Like the doses of castor oil applied to my mother’s generation, we could use a tablespoon of reality. In the midst of unparalleled prosperity, we are grooming a worrying generation. We worry when times are good — certain that they won’t last. We worry when times are bad — sure our best days are behind us. In the absence of real problems, we worry about contrived and imagined ones.
My parents sprang from sturdy stock. They weren’t crybabies. They worked without complaining and didn’t expect a hand-out. They worked their fears out privately on their knees in prayer. They were part of a generation that has been proud to be Americans, proud of their heritage and ready to defend our shores.
My mother’s cookies have always been good. But the legacy of her life and the example of her generation are her best and lasting gifts to her children.
— Dwight Sparks
