~on the subject of bravery~

It has been 12 years ago tomorrow now that my mom passed away.  Two weeks after turning 87, she simply gave up and went home to Heaven.  She had lived such a full and marvelous life, one that was certainly worth the living.  I'm sure that not a moment of it was wasted.  My heart holds many memories of life as Lois Scott's daughter, child number 6 of 7.

Mom helped me to teach the writing lesson this morning at school, and I'm sure she would be surprised.  The lesson was on bravery and what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like.  I've asked the kids in my 5th grade class to come up  with the name of someone they know who exhibits the character trait of bravery and to write about them in a personal narrative essay.  I'm going to lead by example and write one of my own, and the person I have chosen is my mother.

Mom was just about my age when my father passed away at the very young age of 59 from lung cancer.  He did not last long after his diagnosis, succumbing to the disease that had already taken so many in his family.  She found herself a widow who didn't know how to drive a car, had no job or means to support herself except for my dad's meager social security check, and a very empty house to wander around in all day long.  Rather than sit back and bemoan the fact of how much life had now changed for her, Mom got busy and went back to the local community college in Hutchinson and earned a home health aide certificate.  For the next nearly 10 years she provided home health care to the elderly of Hutchinson, Kansas.  Although I didn't realize it at the time, my mom really had to be brave and courageous to get her life going again and take care of herself on her very own.  And you know what?  She did just that.

I wish my mom would have known all the school kids that I have taught since her death in 2007.  She would have loved them all,  just like she did with any young person she ever met.  When she died that fall, I had not even retired from the state of Kansas as a teacher yet.  Mike and I would not be married for yet another 6 years.  More than likely she would be so surprised to learn that I had moved to Colorado, then on to Texas, and finally settling down in northern Oklahoma.  Perhaps she would have even said to me,

"You are brave to try so many new things Peggy Ann!"
 My mother instilled in me many character traits and being brave was only one of them.  She taught me a strong work ethic, modeled for me what kindness looked like, impressed upon me the importance of getting an education and becoming a teacher, and a thousand other things that I would call upon as I too have grown older.  I'm sure didn't always appreciate her efforts 100 percent of the time, but I know now why she did things in the way that she did.  I wish I would have thanked her more often.  Now I cannot, for the time has passed just as she has.

So I choose to spend whatever years I have remaining on this earth doing the kinds of things that she taught me so well to do.  Today her memory shall be in my wonderful fifth grade classroom, and when her daughter speaks to her students they shall know the kind of woman and mother she really was.  I see my mom's face in the mirror each day as I get ready for school.  I look just like she did and that used to scare me at first.  Now I accept it as a gift from above.

 I'm sorry if you never had the chance to meet Lois Scott, but if you know me then one thing is for certain.

 You know her as well.

She looks so young in this picture.  The little baby she is holding is me at age 9 months.  My little sister Cindy is not pictured.  She was the "twinkle in Daddy's eyes".


This is my Mom and I as we stood in her old house in Hutchinson, Kansas.  She had gone to live in a longterm care facility and she had put the house up for sale.  I bought it and lived there for 10 years before Mike and I got married.  She never walked back into the house again after that visit.  


Her children and grandchildren stood for a photo after her funeral service that morning.  We are her living legacies, something that I am very proud to be a part of.


     

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