Giving Thanks for Mothers

Tuesday’s at NanaHood we give thanks and since Mother’s Day is Sunday, today we are giving thanks for moms. In fact, all this week we are celebrating Motherhood at NanaHood! So email all your friends and relatives and invite them to stop by!

Today I thought I’d share some lessons my mother taught me that I am thankful for.

1. Tell the truth. Not just when it’s convenient or when you feel like it. Always.

2. Play fair. Not just when other people are watching. Always. But just because you play fair don’t expect others to always play fair. The world doesn’t work that way.

3. You can disagree with your sibling but you are never to fight. Never. She once told me, “If you and your brother don’t get along after I’m gone I will come back and haunt you.”  I believed her! We never have fought and never will. There is nothing in this world worth losing a sibling over, nothing.

4. Keep the faith.  God and church always came first in our house.  My mom wasn’t perfect and neither am I, but she taught me who was and where to find the answers to all of life’s questions.

5. Open your doors to your children’s friends. It’s good to know where they are and what they are doing. By the way, doors also means refrigerator doors. Mom’s was always open and so is mine.

6. Love of a child is unconditional. You may not like what they do sometimes, but you always love them…always.

7. There are lots of things in life more important than a clean house. Laundry and dishes can wait. Children won’t. They will grow up in the blink of an eye. Spend time playing with them and step over the mess.

8. Get a college education. Mom went back to college after my brother and I were in school and it was hard for her. She never let me forget the importance of going to school.

9. Take care of each other. Even on her death bed she was worrying about other people. She instructed me how and when to buy clothes for my dad and asked me to look out for her mother. I promised her I would, even though at the time I didn’t think I could survive without her.  I read a quote once that stuck with me. It said, “You’ll never know how strong you are….until being strong is the only choice you have.”  When death takes someone we love, we don’t have a choice.

10. Mom taught me about dying with dignity. Cancer is a horrible disease and while it devastated me to watch mom get so sick and suffer, she didn’t complain. Her faith never wavered. She was courageous to the end. She taught me about life and then, she taught me about death.

I will never forget all the lessons she taught me.

Don’t forget to leave a comment wishing your mom a Happy Mother’s Day. All comments this week will be entered in our give away of a copy of Mozart for a Mother’s Soul to be given away this Saturday.