Mother

Today marks the 7th anniversary of my mother’s death. In a lot of ways it seems so long ago. Time has a way of marching on and it really saddens me how quickly memories can fade. One of the main reasons I started this Blog was to help me remember and to also share my memories with those that will read this now and in the future.

It’s a little hard to describe my mother. If you have never met a person, it’s almost impossible to really get a grasp of what their personality was like by reading or hearing another person’s description of them. One time when I was about twelve I asked my mother about her mother who died when I was young. For some reason, I was curious about her personality and wanted to know what she was like. I think it was because Mom brought up more than once that her mother would not let her take a picture of her wedding cake because supposedly that was a frivolous thing to do. Of course I thought this was ridiculous and in my childish mind I classified Grandmother Kreider as mean for ruining my mother’s desire to have a keepsake picture of her wedding cake. To my surprise, Mom paused and thought for a while and then said, “she was nice.”  Such simple words that really don’t give any deep insight into a person’s true character and yet they also bring a picture into your mind of someone that was pleasant to be around. It changed my opinion of my grandmother and I am also going to use these words to describe my mother. She was nice.

Edith Amanda Kreider was born on February 3, 1926 and was the fifth child and third daughter born to Elmer & Mary Kreider. Six more brothers followed after Mom making the family count a total of eleven children. I don’t think they ever lacked for food and necessities, but I am pretty sure they were not considered wealthy. More than once I heard Mom tell the story that in grade school she wore the same dress every day to school. On Saturday they would wash it and then she would wear it again the following week.  Finally, her mother made her a new dress which she excitedly wore to school.  Her teacher made the comment to the class, “Oh look, Edith has a new dress!”  At the time, Mom said she was so proud that her teacher noticed her different dress, but later when she looked back on it she realized that it was pretty unusual for someone to wear the same dress every single day and that maybe she should have been ashamed and embarrassed when it was such a monumental occasion for her to wear something different that her teacher commented on it.

Mom was an academically gifted student and got straight A’s on her report cards. Unfortunately, she had to quit school after the tenth grade and she never did get a high school diploma. I think this always bothered her but apparently not enough for her to take a GED test later in life to obtain one. I remember she was good with math and handled most of her and Dad's finances keeping meticulous handwritten records in a ledger. Mom always wrote in cursive and it was a beautiful script. After she died, I found a notebook in which she had copied poems.

When I looked at that unique handwriting a wave of nostalgia came over me. I kept the book.

Mom was also a good artist. She painted several pictures which some of us children have on display in our houses today. The one I have is of the old barn across the road from where I grew up.

Unfortunately, there is a blue smudge on the barn and a small tear in the road, but it is still a great painting. My brother Glen has a picture that she painted of our house at River Road in Conestoga.

This is my favorite. I am amazed that she could have such artistic abilities and absolutely not pass any of those genes on to me.L

I remember Mom as someone who worked hard and didn't complain much. She enjoyed cooking and baking and gardening. Each spring it was a big deal to get the garden planted and all summer and fall she froze and canned the produce that she harvested from it. Her flower gardens were beautiful as well (again sadly something she didn't pass on to me). She planted mums along the one side of our garage and they would bloom well into November. I remember one year a man stopped and asked if he could take a picture of them because they were so pretty.

Mom was quick to see the humor in things and was always up for a good laugh. My brother Gene and I will never forget the time the two of us and Mom drove out to Colorado to visit my sister Lois and her family. Somewhere in the Midwest, Mom and I decided to switch seats. I was in the back and she was in the front. We thought we could do it while Gene continued to drive. Mom got her one leg over the seat to come back and somehow she got stuck and could neither go front or back. All three of us were laughing so hard that eventually Gene had to pull over so we could get Mom unstuck from her precarious position. I still cannot think about this without smiling.

Mom taught me a lot. I learned the basics of housekeeping from her like cooking, baking, and cleaning.  She tried in vain to teach me to sew but alas my impatience proved too much for either of us to conquer. She would patiently rip out my stitches and tell me to try again. Honestly, I would try but eventually both of us saw the futility in it.  

Mom taught me to be honest and to work hard and to be a dependable person. She taught me to be (I hope) a good listener. One thing you could be sure of is that if you told Mom anything in confidence it would go no further. She encouraged me to persevere when things went wrong and times were tough. One of her favorite sayings was, "this too will pass." I think of that quote often when I am going through something that is unpleasant.

Like any mother, Mom loved to see her children happy. One of my fondest memories of something she did for me was a 16th birthday party. Our family never did much to celebrate birthdays and I had certainly never had a party but I must have mentioned that I wished for a party. She contacted one of my school friends and together they planned a surprise birthday party for me. On a day close to my birthday, I came home from school and went immediately out to the chicken house to collect eggs. When I came into the house two hours later, six teenage girls shouted at me as I opened the laundry door.  I nearly jumped out of my skin and I can still see Mother just beaming in the background as my shock turned to complete joy as I realized my wish for a surprise birthday party had been granted.

Another thing that I appreciated about Mom was her faithful support of me.  No matter what I did, I always knew that I would have at least one supporter  It might have been a piano recital, a school program, a softball game or whatever. I could be sure that Mom would be in the audience. Mom wasn't overly demonstrative and rarely if ever did I receive a hug or an "I love you" from her, but I never questioned how much she loved me.

She also lived out her faith in a quiet way.  I don't think I can comprehend the pain that she went through when most of her siblings chose to join the Eastern Mennonite Church in the late sixties and early seventies. It drove a deep divide in her family and unfortunately it was never reconciled. In many of her siblings eyes, she was no longer living a godly life and one sibling went as far as to tell her that she was going to hell. I know Mom took this hurt of the bickering of her family over religion to her grave, but I think in her own heart, she was at peace with the choice that she and Dad made to stay with Lancaster Mennonite Conference. She believed that Jesus was her Savior and that she was saved through grace not through any restricting guidelines that a church demanded of her.  Mom rarely talked about her family or her faith to me and I think it kind of went with her personality to keep things to herself and not speak openly about her feelings (this is a trait that I did inherit from her).

There are many other things I could write about Mom, but it would make this Blog post too long. She obviously taught me my love for Scrabble and other word games. After I married and had children, she helped me a lot with childcare and my children loved to go to her house. I always enjoyed spending time with Mom and I know that she was always glad to see me and my family. 

A couple of weeks ago, I visited my parents’ graves. I walked around the graveyard a little bit and read the many other tombstones. So many people and each one of them lived a life and had a story to tell, but I am guessing that for the most part their lives and stories are buried with them.  They walked and talked, ate and slept, were happy and sad, hoped and dreamed like everyone else in the world before and after them, but when their casket was lowered into the ground and covered with dirt, unless they had done something of historical value, within a generation or two, nobody remembers what they looked like or anything about them. 

I traced the etching of my mother's name on her grave stone and pictured her face in my mind. Memories washed over me and I lowered my head and silently wept. Wiping away the tears, I turned away from her grave and thought to myself, "Yes, Mom, everything does pass, even life on this earth."

I think when children can say proudly, "I am _________'s daughter or son" it means that the parent has been someone that has earned their love, respect and admiration. I can say not only with pride, but also with a grateful heart that I am thankful and blessed to be Edith's daughter.