Since much of the detailed story about my amazing mother won’t appear in my first book in progress, Digital Souls: Weaving Loss, Spirituality, and Technology to Transform Your Life, I want to honor her here on Mother’s Day.
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My mother was born in 1920 in Pennsylvania—the same year women won the right to vote. During her 93 years, she witnessed extraordinary changes in the world and in the lives of women.
There is a story that one of her ancestors was accused of witchcraft in the 1600s and nearly burned at the stake. Thankfully, that ancestor survived and I eventually became a New Thought minister. That tickles me!
Mom earned a scholarship to study French literature at the Sorbonne in Paris, but World War II changed everything. She stayed home and worked in a bookstore. She married my father just before he was called to serve in the war. They didn’t even have a honeymoon. She never complained.
Like many women of her generation, she sacrificed opportunities that women today often take for granted. Instead, she devoted herself to raising six daughters with love, strength, and resilience.
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Money seemed to be tight in a middle-class family with six girls. We wore hand-me-down clothes and ate day-old bread. Yet our home was rich in books, learning, discussion, and encouragement. My mother valued education deeply and taught us to think for ourselves, even when our opinions differed from hers.
She was also a world-class worrier.
I used to tease her that worry was a form of prayer because what we consistently focus on often happens in our lives. I would tell her, “Please stop worrying about me so none of those things happen!”
But beneath that worry was immense love.
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Mom endured heartbreaking losses. One daughter died in a terrible drug-induced accident at age eighteen. Another was killed in a car accident at thirty-four. At that time, there were no grief support groups or healthy outlets for emotional healing. Women of her generation carried their grief silently.
Today, modern mind-body research confirms what many spiritual traditions have long taught: unexpressed emotions can deeply affect the body. Dr. John Gray wrote in What You Feel, You Can Heal about the importance of safely expressing grief and emotions with caring listeners. I wish my mother had been able to access the kinds of emotional and spiritual support available today, both online and in person.
Yet through everything, she kept loving.
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When I wanted to run away to New York to become a ballet dancer, a path that definitely was not my ultimate calling or my talent, Mom and Dad supported me anyway. After a year and a half studying dance at the Boston Conservatory, I transferred to Ohio State University to study social work. Mom never said, “I told you so.” She simply continued loving and supporting me.
(Some of her worries about me may have been justified. But my night in jail after a welfare rights protest in 1969 is a story for another day.)
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In her forties, Mom developed spasmodic torticollis, a painful neurological condition that eventually fused her spine and left her permanently bent over. Severe arthritis later affected her hands so badly that she eventually needed help eating.
Yet I rarely heard her complain.
My parents spent their final years at Otterbein, a Methodist senior and assisted living community in Ohio. Even after Dad died there at 91, she remained a light. Residents and staff often commented about her warmth, kindness, and humor.
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She was a prolific writer. She filled our lives with letters, reflections, and stories. I still treasure boxes filled with her writings and hope one day to scan them for my sisters, nieces, and nephew.
She dreamed of someday publishing a book based on the letters exchanged with her daughters during our summers away at camp, long before email existed. I wish she had written that book. But I am grateful to have sheaves of her writings that I will eventually scan for my sisters and nieces and nephew.
At the age of sixty-one, Mom took her lifelong passion for books and history to a new level. She loved reading biographies. Whether she was immersed in the life of Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, or Hans Christian Andersen, she didn’t simply read about them—she brought them to life. After researching each person, she wrote what she modestly called a “book report,” to share with others verbally. They were far more than that. Her presentations became so engaging and insightful that she was soon in demand throughout Northwestern Ohio. She often dressed in costume as the historical figure she portrayed while speaking at churches, museums, elder hostels, libraries, the YWCA, and many other organizations that invited her to share her work. She became widely known for these presentations and continued giving them for seventeen years, until torticollis eventually made traveling and speaking impossible. She didn’t want to stop. Her love of learning, history, and sharing wisdom with others stayed with her.
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So this Mother’s Day, I honor my mother’s resilience, creativity, sacrifices, unwavering love, and the example she set for all of us.
She taught us to care deeply—for each other, for animals, for the Earth, and for life itself.
Thank you, Mom. I believe you are still loving all of us from the other side, along with Dad and your two daughters who left this world far too soon.
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I imagine many of you who are reading this carry beautiful stories about your own mothers or mother figures. If you feel so moved, I’d love for you to share a memory in the comments.
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