Lessons learned from Mother…

For some reason I can hardly ever get a full nights sleep on Friday nights! It’s horrible, I always end up being wide eyed and bushy tailed around 5am. I feel like a kid the night before CHRISTmas, with that excited/anxious feeling in their tummy…I have a suspicion that it’s due to looking forward to weight watchers and getting my progress down on paper. I can’t help it, I get so excited when I have a good week. And, when I have a bad week…I think the anxiety is more like dread of having to take a few steps back…but isn’t that what life is usually about? Taking a few steps back when we make mistakes so we can learn from them? Sometimes I have a hard head and it takes me a while. I have to hear the SAME lesson about twenty times before I actually get it, (ask my mom,she knows!) 

Speaking of my mom and things she knows (did you like that lead in?) I LOVE spending time with my mom, I think it’s an honor that I get to live with her and learn from her, sometimes she gets a little frustrated with me for not listening to the lessons and experiences that she shares…and who wouldn’t?! I’d be frustrated too…but I’m a hard headed kid…it sometimes takes me a while…and multiple times.

I just wanted to share a few lessons I’ve recently learned from my mother…

At our weight watchers meeting there’s a woman who…well…talks like a guy (there’s no other way to put it…sorry), I had been forewarned about this lady and how “annoying” she was. So of course when you’re forewarned you already don’t have the best attitude about that person and you don’t even know them. At my first meeting attending on Saturday a.m. this lady was there, and the meeting topic was on who we think we are. Then that lady said, “I’m a survivor.” My stomach sank…the reason why she talks that way was because she survived cancer…the reason why she shares so much is because she’s a survivor…she’s lived to share her experiences, and why shouldn’t she?! Here I was judging somebody I didn’t even know…I felt awful, I talked to my mom about it after, and then she shared this story:

When she was younger, she was walking home from school, it was in October and she passed her neighbors house…they were putting up Christmas decorations. Christmas decorations in October? She thought they were SO weird. When she got home, she was telling her mother (my Tutu) about how weird she thought the neighbors were, Tutu looked at my mom, and told her…They’re celebrating Christmas now, because their son wouldn’t be alive in December. I cried from hearing that story…

Lesson learned, we don’t know why people do the things that they do…instead of thinking they’re weird, we need to accept them for what they do…they have a reason we may not know about. I’m not perfect at this but I’m definitely trying. 

The following Saturday we went to Walmart, on our way out of the parking lot, we passed by a person holding a cardboard sign saying, “Homeless, every little bit helps, God Bless.” So judgmental me is of course being judgmental and my mom says, we should give them something. Then she shared this experience:

We all know that sometimes it’s tough to give somebody we don’t know cash, especially if we’re broke ourselves. Sometimes we prefer to give them some food that we choose ourselves just to make sure they don’t waste our money. One day, a lady came up to my mom in a store parking lot and asked her for some money. With tears in her eyes she says, “If I can just get a few more dollars, I can go to this place for the night and they give me a warm meal and a bed to sleep in.” 

There are places like that for the homeless you know? A few dollars can get them shelter for a night and a warm meal. Then my mom said, “I gave her what I could.” Then she taught me another lesson in being judgmental. We should give what we can…if they waste our money on dumb stuff like drugs, they’ll be accountable, but what if they genuinely need the cash instead of the cheap granola bars and we don’t give it to them because we think they’re druggies, or that it’s their fault they’re homeless.
Lesson learned…Life is hard enough, let’s pay it forward and help someone in need. I thought of the song a poor wayfaring man of grief. We will be blessed by being an answer to another one of Fathers childrens’ prayers…because it’s the truth…THEY are Heavenly Fathers children too. Don’t they deserve to feel His love? Aren’t we meant to be His hands? 

Thank you mom, for sharing those lessons with me…I’m a better person because of them, and I’m grateful you’re willing to teach them, even when I’m a bonehead and don’t hear them the first time. 

I love you my angel mother.

Isn’t she so beautiful?

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