For Mother's Day (May 11, 2003) I decided to send mom a list of memories! Here is the letter (from Wendy):
Dear Mom, I thought I would share some more memories I have
of you for Mother’s Day!!
I remember…
…when I was a small child overhearing you telling someone
how obedient I was. It really made me
want to live up to that!
…how you didn’t want to share your testimony in Fast and
Testimony meeting for fear you would get emotional.
….there was a particular Religion Instructor that you really
liked. Some of the things he taught were things that none of us heard anywhere
else and so if we heard some unusual doctrine we always figured that is where
you must have heard it! Kind of like the
boys asking me, “where did you hear that – from your girl scout teacher?”
….learning in family home evening that if we ever got
visited by an angel all we had to do was give him or her the “handshake” test!
…us all goofing around singing “Jr. Bird Man” and using our
upside-down fingers for glasses. (You
probably don’t remember this, but I don’t think I had ever seen you laugh so
hard!)
….you telling us the joke about the “Wide Mouthed Frog” and
the “The Army joke of “We have good news
and bad news (the good news was that they could have a change of underwear that
day – the bad news was…John, you change with Bob, Bob you change with Jim….!”
…our multivitamin and little pink fluoride tablet by each of
our plates.
…there were some big brown vitamins that we couldn’t stand
to eat and so I would pretend to eat them but really threw them away!
….watching home movies on the living room wall with the
movie projector. We loved to watch them
backwards and would laugh and laugh when we slid up the slide backwards and
zoomed backwards up the tubing hill!
…you would strategically place certain newspaper articles
and clippings on the kitchen table for us to “happen to read” as we were
eating.
….giving us bowls of apple slices as we were watching TV so
as to get some fruit down us (I do this with my kids too – it works!)
…you told us that if we were ever in a bad situation where
we didn’t want to do whatever it was our friends were doing we could always
blame our parents “I can’t because my parents won’t let me!” Or pretend to be sick and call you to come
get me. Or call to check in and give a
“secret code word” like “Geronomo,” to let you know we were in trouble and needed
you to “demand that we come home right now”.
Or call to tell you that we’d forgotten to feed the neighbor’s pet or
whatever, so we could say that you were angry and demanding that we come right
home!
….the aroma of yummy homemade bread and eating big slices of
it right out of the oven with melting butter and home-made strawberry jam! (Now
I am in the habit and make home-made bread for our family every other week!)
…delicious home-made fruit leather sitting out to dry on our
back deck.
…dipping apple slices in sugar and cinnamon on one side to
put on the dryer to make dried fruit (although we ate half of them before they
ever made it on the tray!” And loading apricot halves for drying.
…boxes and boxes of coupons!! You would go to the store and save hundreds
of dollars by double couponing. I said
when I got married I would never go to all that trouble – it’s a good thing my
husband does the shopping!!
…asking “when are you going to buy more wheat thins?” You would say “When they are on sale!” Now I ask my husband to get this or that and
he says, “When it’s on sale!”
…practicing the piano every morning at 6:30 (Jeni and I would trade off so that sometimes we were
first and sometimes second – we loved to be second so we could sleep in an
extra half hour – Now I am having Janika practice at 6:30 a.m. – it’s the only
time it gets done!)
…whenever we were speaking or singing in church you would
tell us to pick different people out of the congregation to look at who were
smiling at us, so we would be less nervous and to pick out different people and
give them a big smile (because we had such a beautiful smile, and then it would
be natural).
….when you drove to Logan to bring me my mission call. I remember I went off alone to the door of my
apartment to open it, and then came over to share it with you. Later that
night I signed “In this Very Room” at my New Horizons concert and they made the
announcement of my ASL mission.
…you pretending to do laundry at 6:00 a.m. when you were
really seeing why my current boyfriend
(who was sleeping over) was sneaking downstairs to my bedroom (you had made him
sleep upstairs)!
…Rick and I talking in sign language on the couch in our
living room so that you and Dad couldn’t overhear our conversations!
…you always telling us how lucky you were to have a good
marriage and to be married to such a good man who helped so much around the
house.
…you telling us how lucky you were that you were blessed
with such wonderful children!! (Although
I’m sure there were many times you didn’t feel that way when we were acting
up!)
…instilling the desire for further education within all of
us. It was never a question of whether
or not we would go to college, but only a question of where we would go. That’s probably why all of us graduated from
college!
…giving me a date book to write down every guy I went out
with. I think I ended up with about 100
names by the time I got married!
…bawling when I read an apology letter from you that you had
left on my pillow after we had gotten in an argument.
…Easter baskets, New Years surprises, and Christmas stocking
lined up on our white couch – with our favorite sugar cereal!
…making new year’s banners for each new baby and taking
their picture (we do that too now!)
…spraying the white couch with furniture polish (which made
it very slippery) and then running and sliding across it.
…piling up pillows in the hallway and running and jumping
over them!
….playing “muddy mess” in the sand-box! (My kids love to
play that too!)
…working hard to earn stars on our star chart (no wonder
several of us kids have made chart just
like it for our own our families!)
….coming home from dates and coming into your room to tell
you all about them. I always knew you
would be there asking me if I had kept the rules!
…playing games like Boggle, Progressive Rummy, Master Mind,
and Pit.
…reading books to us (I particularly liked the one called
“Marrow of the World”) I think you
really instilled within us a love for reading!
…Jeni and I talking in English Accents after we were in bed, “Sista, sista, is that you? I think we
are in a witch's castle!!” (I don’t know
if you ever heard us doing this or not!)
…mixing milk half and half with water and powdered milk to
make it go further – yuck! No wonder
I’ve never really liked milk!
…loading me up with a car load of food whenever I was
heading back to college after a weekend at home.
…receiving little rebate checks while I was away at college!
….going out to Pizza Hut as a family and getting an extra
large pepperoni pan pizza and a pitcher of rootbeer!
Mom – thank you so much for all of the wonderful memories
and for all I’ve learned from you. I
think it is neat that we children have passed down many of the things we have
learned from you and I know there will be much more as our children continue to
grow older. Thank you. again for everything!! I love you!!
Wendy
