My mother died in
December, and my mother-in-law is under hospice care. With Mother’s Day coming
up, this is a good time to reprint a post from May 14, 2012. I have updated the
pictures and changed the text slightly, but the substance is the same.
A Tale of Two Mothers
My mother-in-law and my
mother lived two very different lives.
Mom Camp was born in
Youngstown, Ohio but moved to “The Region” in Northwest Indiana as a child. She
married a region native and continued to live there until she and Dad retired
to Missouri.
My mother was born and
raised on a farm in Iowa, but she moved frequently during her years as a
minister’s wife. It was only after Daddy retired that Mama got to settle down
again.
Mom Camp rarely traveled
and never needed a passport. In her later years she and Dad took vacations to
Hawaii and Puerto Rico, but those were the only times she crossed an ocean.
Mama knew she had married
a man who loved to travel, and getting a new passport became as common as
getting a new driver’s license. When I was a child we started counting the
number of states and countries we visited, but at some point we lost track. We
even lived in Amman, Jordan and Edinburgh, Scotland, traveling around the
Middle East and Europe during vacations. After my parents retired, they often
wintered in a small town on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, where they volunteered
their time and talents at a Presbyterian school.
So Mom and Mama lived two
very different lives.
On the surface.
Where it matters most, however,
the two mothers could be twins.
Both have always been
strong Christian women. Both were active in their churches until age and
circumstances intervened. Both worked hard all their lives and taught their
children good Christian values.
And both have children
and grandchildren who appreciate what the family matriarch did for them.
The first picture shows
Mom Camp with four of her five children this past Christmas (2015).
The second shows my
mother with my oldest brother, my daughter, and my son-in-law on her 96th birthday, June 19, 2015.
I’ve thanked both of
them, but probably not often enough.
If your mother is still
living, make sure you thank her this Mother’s Day.
