Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: A Tribute to Your Mother

Well, it is the day before Mother's Day, so I should not have been surprised to see that Randy Seaver chose mothers as the theme for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you:

(1)  This is Mother's Day weekend, and I have been thinking about my mother — the family times, the hard times, the wonderful times.  

(2)  For SNGF this week, write a tribute to your mother.  It can be any length.  What do you remember about her, and what did you learn from her?

(3)  Share your tribute or memories in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this post, or on Facebook or other social media.  Please leave a comment on this post if you post something elsewhere.

I learned many valuable lessons from my mother.  I learned tolerance and openmindedness, because my parents had friends of many different backgrounds — black, Hispanic, Indian, Vietnamese, gay — in a time when that was not common.  I learned forgiveness and love, because my mother welcomed my father's first wife and my half-sister into our home, and they lived with us.  I learned intellectual curiosity, because my mother always encouraged her children to read, study, and expand their minds.  I learned to appreciate language, because she played games with it and made it fun.  I learned fearlessness, because she always told me I could do and be anything I wanted.  I learned to be adventurous, because she emphasized that we should be willing to try almost anything once.  And I learned so much about my family, because she and her mother talked about relatives and let me know who they were.

There is no tombstone for my mother with numbers on either side of a dash, because she chose to be cremated.  But I don't need a tombstone to remember her.