Mother taught us:

To never go to sleep angry.
That things done right took no longer than things done wrong.
That all problems looked better after a good night’s sleep.
That every story had two sides.
That we had a reputation to uphold; a name to be proud of.
That time heals grief and then memories will bring comfort.
That we answered for our words as well as our actions and that words were
powerful enough to hurt and heal.
To give flowers to the living.
That all we give out comes back to us…the good and the bad.
That every person we meet would have a lesson to teach us if we could listen
with our heart.

Mother taught us:

That death was just as natural as birth and that when it was her time to leave us that God would supply all the strength, healing and love to go on.
And….that we should pass on all the good she and others have freely given to us.

It was a cold, blustery night and the snow was beginning to come down. At 6:00 pm it was already dark. Daddy was not home yet but we had already eaten dinner. It was good to be inside where it was warm. I was about five years old. Things were quiet in our house. My sisters were doing homework and Mom was cleaning the kitchen. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. It was seldom that someone came to the house after dark. Mom turned on the porch light and there was a man and three little girls at the door. The man explained that he had no job and that his children were hungry. “Could you spare some money or some food?”, he asked. Mom brought them to the table and heated up leftover food from our dinner and added canned applesauce and lots of milk. I had never seen anyone be so hungry. I hung back in the shadows and watched. Mom offered seconds and thirds and still they ate with vigor. She packed food that she had canned and made sandwiches. She talked with them, hugged them and they returned to the dark night.

Before she cleaned the table, she lifted me onto her lap and started to rock me in her rocking chair. “Terri”, she said, “you must remember this, when people are hungry, feed them, make sure before they leave that the children are full. Sometimes people have alcohol problems and if you give them money they might buy liquor and the children will continue to be hungry. The Bible says that there are times we care for angels unaware. I think that is who knocked on our door tonight”.

I remember it like it was yesterday, my heart pounding with the loud knocking on the door, the strangers coming in to our home, the children so tiny with huge eyes filled with hunger and the how humble their Daddy was. I remember with pride my Mom stretching food and giving them plenty to take with them. She treated them like family, like there was nothing unusual about their requests.

About twenty-five years later I became a foster parent in West Virginia. Again I saw the faces of hungry children; kids who were eight and nine years old that had never been asked if they wanted seconds on milk or food. I had to learn as an adult that hunger still existed in this country and it was within a few miles of my home. I remembered my Mom’s words as I too treated these children as though their hunger was not unusual and tried to make them feel at home. My Mom planted the seeds in me to help the hungry when I was just a little girl. I hope I passed this compassion on to my girls. I hope someone, somewhere touched your heart in this way too.

Finally the day of departure arrived. Daddy worked long, twelve hour days but he got us all up bright and early and we took off in a car packed full of supplies and four sisters. Now, here is the clincher. We had been on the road a couple hours with me already asking “how much further is it?” and all the sisters complaining about being crowded and could my parents take me up front with them? Dad even offered me a nickel if I could be quiet for fifteen minutes (this may have scarred me for life!) and I complied to prove I could.

Suddenly Mom broke the silence, “Mark, I just realized that when I shut the electricity off for the house to save money that the chest freezer went off too. Every thing will thaw out and have to be thrown out in a week’s time!”

And here is the wisdom: as Daddy turned the car around he patted my Mom’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “God works in mysterious ways. Perhaps this was His way of slowing us down to protect us from harm. We will just trust in that and be grateful.” And so a five hour trip ended up taking about nine hours but we arrived safely. It was one of our best vacations and also one that we teased Mom about forever.

I have thought of that day many times through the years, as I took a wrong turn, forgot something and had to backtrack, etc. It was a good lesson to learn young, a unique way perhaps, to look at God’s love and timely interventio

Rancho de Chimayo

Many years ago (1973 to be exact) I was temporarily living in the US with my parents while my father was working over here. I was 18 and we had the opportunity that summer to travel around a little. We were living in Oklahoma City at the time so our trip basically included exploring Texas and New Mexico. Although I enjoyed Texas it was New Mexico that really stuck in my mind as I think it did with all of us.

On one of those days around lunchtime we happened to chance upon a restaurant in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. We’d been taking back roads as they’re always more interesting than highways. We decided to stop for lunch. The name of the restaurant was the Rancho de Chimayo. The food was excellent and after lunch we went on our way.

I didn’t realize st the time that this would be the last family trip I would ever take with my father as I left home and married not much later and he died at the age of 50 not long after my first son was born.

I am now married to an American girl and living in the US. The year before last we decided on a trip to Chimayo after I explained how strong my memories were of the place. The restaurant has expanded and is now much better known than it was when I first went and deservedly so. The food is awesome. For all of you who think you know what Mexican cuisine is like having visited any of the many big franchises spread across the US think again. There really is no comparison. It’s like comparing MickeyD with a 5 star restaurant.

The Rancho now has limited accomodation across the road from the reastaurant and so we stayed there as the center of the trip. We explored many of the places that I had originally been to in 1973 and the feeling was really weird. The last time I had stood in that spot my father had stood alongside me. Happy and sad memories all at the same time.

It’s a fact of life, I guess, that when our parents are alive and we’re still growing into adulthood that we never think of them “not being there.” But of course sometimes they do pass on and unexpectedly so. Standing in those same places from the past made me think of all the things I should have said to him and didn’t. My father knew I loved him as I knew he loved me. But did I ever tell him that as much as I should have? No. Almost certainly not.

As the words of the song say… “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

Never pass by the opportunity to tell someone you love them.

She was also a remarkably practical woman in many more ways than I knew when she was alive. If you had known her, you might have been tempted to dismiss her as a simple country woman who didn’t know much about the world.

One would have been mistaken, to make that assessment.

One of my favorite stories about my Grandmother and her three girls,
involved times that nearly any parent would be familiar with. Most likely in every family, there comes a day, maybe many, in which the child comes home, angry and outraged, over some hurt inflicted by a fellow classmate. I’m sure that sometimes, perhaps often, the child in question really was wronged.

Apparently, at these moments, when one of her daughters came home, angry and complaining over something a classmate or neighborhood child had “done to her,” my Grandmother would listen to her daughter carefully and completely, while the child “spoke her piece.” Then my Grandmother would look her daughter in the eye, and ask the question of questions:

“Yes, but what did MY little girl do?”

The obvious implication there, that my mother, at least, understood
instantly, was that when someone treats us badly, very often we have
contributed to this, in some way. The idea too, I believe, was that we are not to think of ourselves as being victims, but as participants in a
situation, and rather than surrounding ourselves with hurt and resentment, a more productive use of our time and energy would be to
examine ourselves and what WE brought to the situation.

I think my grandmother knew that, and tried to teach it to us all. I wish you could have known her, and that everyone could have a grandmother and mother as wonderful as mine.

I was well into adulthood before I understood fully how lucky I am.
Someday I hope to be a mom, and to have the opportunity to share the
wealth of wisdom I learned from these two strong women, and so many
other interesting people in our family.