PART XX: My Mother

My mother grew up on a farm surrounded by mountains in a very dry part of our country. Her family was very poor, because of the harsh conditions in which they tried to farm. She was one of 7 children, a middle child, but the eldest daughter. Her 2 sisters and 3 of her 4 brothers absolutely adored her. I used to sit and watch their interactions at family gatherings and felt awe, seeing how they treated her. It gave me another perspective on sibling and family dynamics, since my own experience was vastly different from hers. It gave me a blueprint to follow for my own children instead of what I lived through.

My mother was respected, loved and sought out by her siblings. They all wanted a piece of her. They joked with her, had serious conversations, asked her advice, talked to her about their lives and families and hardships. They loved her to pieces. They looked up to her, and treated her almost with reverence. So much so that I noticed a little jealousy from the respective wives of her brothers. Though she always got on well with all her brothers- and sisters-in-law. My mother stayed close with her siblings, all throughout their adult lives, even when they lived far apart from each other.

As a child, my mom was intelligent and got very good marks, so the Department of Education offered her a bursary to study as a teacher after school. She was the first of her family to go to university. She loved learning, and loved going to different places. She loved new experiences and meeting new people. She wasn't autistic like me, she was very good at socializing. She was a tiny blond woman which, of course, also helped to attract people. She had an exceptional way to put everyone at ease around her. People found it easy to talk to her, confide in her and listen to her.

She did very well in her 4-year course, completed the degree and then got a job as a teacher. She moved around a bit, lived her life and ended up in a small town age 26, where she worked with my father at the same school. He grew up in another small town as the child of 2 teachers, and became one himself.

My parents started dating, got married and at 29, my mother had her first baby. She stopped working and became a fulltime mother. The 2^nd child followed 14 months later, so they decided to wait with the 3^rd for a bit. They adored their 2 babies. The eldest was a healthy, tiny little girl with big brown eyes and dark hair. The 2^nd a lightbrown haired, blue eyed little baby. My mother thrived as a mom. She absolutely loved being pregnant and having babies. She found it easy and rather uneventful. :-)

My father apparently helped her a lot, when she had her hands full with the little ones, which she absolutely adored in him. In those days, the majority of men were not as hands on. So three years later, they decided to have the third of the planned 4 children. It was an exceptionally beautiful red-cheeked, white-blond hair, blue-eyed boy. My mom then decided to wait with the 4^th as life was now very busy. So she went to the doctor when baby was 3 months old, and the doctor said, sorry Mrs, but it's too late. The 4^th is already on the way!

So I came earlier than planned and was born a day before my brother's 1^st birthday. From then on, life was just busy for my mom. Very busy. 4 Children under the age of 5 wasn't easy, even with my dad's help. One by one though, we eventually went off to school. When I started grade 1 at age 6, she too went back to teaching. Her life as a stay at home mom came to a halt after a little more than a decade with her little ones.

She loved teaching. She enjoyed being back again. She was a strict teacher, and children had respect and appreciation for her. Her work gave her a lot of fulfillment and joy. She worked almost the same hours than we were at school (she taught at a different school than where we were attending). So we didn't need to miss her while she was at work. When we were home in the afternoons and school holidays, she were too. She was always there for us. At any time, I knew where she was in the house or garden, and that I could go to her. She may not always have come to me when I wanted or needed her to. But I could always, always go to her. I was never shoo'ed away.

She also still loved to learn. So a few years later she applied for further studies. Two of the subjects she took that I remembered best, were Greek Mythology and Geography. She regularly told me about what she was learning and even lent me some of her books to read through. Oh, how I loved the mythology! That was when my passion for history started. Geography, not so much. I liked the astronomy parts though.

We grew up, went off to university and one by one, moved out of the house. She liked the quiet and being able to spend time on hobbies. But she missed us a lot and found the house empty and too quiet at times. She loved it when we would visit. One of my saddest times was when I was about 8 months pregnant with Mr N, my eldest, and the whole family gathered together for her 61^st birthday, and I couldn't attend. It was a 4 hour drive and my doctor did not feel comfortable with it, not when the pregnancy was so complicated.

6 Months before that, when she was 60, she started to feel very tired. The home dr said she was just getting old, like people do. She was extremely fit though, since she loved taking very long and fast walks several times a week all her life. Months later they realized it is something more and she was sent for a lot of tests.

Eventually they diagnosed her with acute heart failure, but couldn't find the cause. The specialists suspected cancer somewhere, but none of the scans could pinpoint where it came from. They looked at the brain, the kidneys, different glands, nothing showed up. In the end, it was just too late. Her heart gave in. Me, my one brother and my father held her hands as she passed on, age 61. It was the hardest moment in my life. The saddest. The most heart wrenching thing I ever had to go through.

Her eulogy was beautiful. Her colleagues came and told us how much they missed her at school. How sad the children were. How they felt lost and adrift without her constant guidance and help (she was department head and vice-headmaster there). How much they missed her laughter and listening ear and sympathetic nature. It was touching, beautiful and meant so much to us all.

She was loved by many, missed by all. But most of all, by us, her husband and children. Oh, how we missed her. My dad fell apart, she was his world. It took him a long time to get some semblance of life back. We all missed her so very, very much. She was the first person we would phone with good news or when we had a bad day. We mailed her long letters about our week and she would reply back with advise, support and how her week was going. She adored writing letters! Oh, how I miss her letters and emails and being able to call her.

So that was her life, but doesn't truly tell the really GOOD about her. That's just more difficult to define. Because her goodness was innate. In her heart. In her very DNA. In her soul.

At some point, she went to teach at the poorest of the schools in our surrounding area, because she believed they especially, could do with a good maths teacher (both she and my dad were maths teachers). She cried so many tears about those children. Their hard lives. The mistakes they made despite the warnings. The cycles that repeated in their lives. Where she could, she tried to make a difference. To help a cold child by getting him a jersey. A new schoolbag for another. A new pencil when the old one was too short to even hold anymore. She didn't spend huge amounts of money, she rather looked at specific needs, and filled those. The little areas. Sanitary pads for high school girls. Shoes for one of the boys that had many kilometers to walk every day. Something that would mean the world to have, for that particular child. Their circumstances were hard, difficult and that's why she wanted to be there, and not teach at the school where we attended (where my father was principle). She wanted to make a difference where it was really needed.

She was frugal in her own life. She made almost all of my clothes. She only bought what was really needed, and only when it was really needed. We never looked bedraggled or destitute. But she wouldn't spend money on a pretty dress when a cheaper one would do. And food didn't get thrown away. If you're thirsty, you drink water or maybe cordial syrup in water. Juice and soda were luxuries we very rarely had. I had my first take away when I was 18 years old. She would rather give us a flower from her own garden as a gift, not something she had to buy.

She saw the world as it was. In its beauty, but also the ugliness. But not through the black and white lens I do. Right or wrong. She saw it in shades of grey and regularly told me I should adapt and accept, because life isn't fair. And waiting for it to be fair, will just hurt. She could accept the reality around her without railing about the unfairness of it all. She would complain about it, mention it as facts, but not cry or get frustrated about it much.

She could look past the crime and understand why a criminal did it. And feel sorry for them. She didn't see humans as good nor bad. She saw them exclusively as humans with both good and bad. And thus no one was beneath her, and no one was above her. She saw each one as an equal and treated them as such. She didn't idolize any humans, but did have a love for writers. Old English writers in particular, as well as some Afrikaans ones.

She made friends easily, but preferred to only have a handful of close ones with whom she shared deeply. She tended to keep friends, rarely loosing any. I could only think of 2. One because of a disagreement over animals, and another because of politics. She were in close contact with friends she made in university until her death. She was thus loyal, supportive and understanding in her friendships. She forgave easily and fully. She rarely held onto grudges and wouldn't repeatedly call up mistakes of the past.

She could talk about anything and everything and loved to laugh. So conversations was usually lively and funny when she was around. Not because she was the one telling jokes, but because everyone loved to make her laugh. She was beautiful when she laughed. Her blue-grey eyes would sparkle, she would throw her head back and laughed deeply, infectiously. My brother was the joker, and had us all in stitches the moment the family were together. Everyone wanted to see my mother happy, so it was easy to join in.

But when it was just her and a friend, or her and one of her daughters, she would be serious, contemplative and discuss the deep things in life. Religion, the state of the world, history, humanity, psychological issues, etc. She read deep and far. Different genres and authors and languages. She loved autobiographies the most, and we'd regularly find her sitting in a sunny spot, book open on her lap, staring outside at her garden, lost in thought because of the views in the books.

When I went to university, I found a little secondhand bookshop close by where I could walk to. So before every holiday, I would go there and look for old books from the writers she enjoyed, to take back home to her. Oh, how her face lit up when I took them out of my bag! She would take them reverently, dust them off, turn them around, rub the front cover, then clutch it to her stomach and say thank you. It gave her such great joy.

My mom took time to learn, before she formed opinions. Thus, her opinions were valued. I differed a lot from her in my political views and outlook in life, and philosophies. But it never caused rife between us, since she could look past it all and see my reasons too. Then she would explain to me why she differs, without trying to change my mind. It was a rare quality in her. To so completely accept that people may differ from her.

The interesting thing though, is that my mother wasn't especially empathetic. She could see the history behind someone, and understand why it lead to the outcome it did. And feel sympathy. Oh, her heart would break for someone who is going through a hardship. She was an extremely sympathetic person, but not as empathetic. She could understand the circumstances and actions of a person, the story, but wasn't as apt to understand the current emotion someone was feeling.

I'm almost the exact opposite. I'm not able to so clearly see the history and the surrounding story, but I strongly feel the emotional energy current. I can walk into a room and exactly know what the people inside feel. My mom was a bit oblivious to all of that. Which made her a somewhat callous mother. She did not know when we were sad or hurting. We had to go and tell her, she would rarely notice it herself.

She was open though, she never sent us away. She always listened and tried to be supportive best she could. Which was good enough. It still made her an exceptional mother. Someone we trusted implicitly with all our feelings, emotions, pains, hurts and joys. The first person we wanted to talk to whenever something happened to make us laugh or cry. The only person whose opinion truly mattered until the day each one of us got married one after the other. 

She had another beautiful quality. She understood how different humans were. She never treated us the same, as children. In some ways it may have caused friction, but in other ways, it made us feel so special. It made us feel understood. She knew how we were put together differently, and never expected us to be the same, act the same, feel the same. 

She encouraged our differences and supported our different choices in life. She never wanted us to have a copy of her life, she wanted us to live our own. To find what we loved to do, and make it happen. She taught us that we didn't need to walk the path everyone else walks, but to choose our own way, even if it may be different to the norm. 

But she also expected and taught us to do everything in a responsible way, with integrity and Biblical morals. To keep within the laws. To be good citizens and respect other people. To be independent and functional as adults in the world. She always said that her life was fulfilled when the last of her children were independent and functional adults. 

My mom kept the family together and knew it. She suspected that after her death, we would move into different directions. She encouraged it, and said not to hang onto each other if it starts to hurt or burden us. To let each other go. Which was so hard for me to do, but I eventually did succeed. 

She would be so happy to see all of us, her children, today. All eventually married good people, and all of us had children, who all turned out to be beautiful human beings. She would've loved them all very much. Her children were her joy. She always said as teachers, she and my dad never expected nor wanted to be rich. They wanted children. Four specifically. She said we were their riches, their jewels. And that was all that mattered to her, that we would turn out happy, functional human beings with our own places in the world.

The reason why I had to speak some more about my Mother, especially the good of my Mother, will eventually become clearer. It has everything to do with who she was, and her specific place in God's Kingdom. And thereby mine, and the calling I now have. It's all interlinked. Weaved through time. And in the end, it will all make more sense. 

For now, suffice to say, my Mother was more special than any of us could ever realize. I only had an inkling of truly how special when God spoke to me months after her death, to reveal to me why He had to take her home. Only now, through my studies and what He has revealed in dreams and visions, do I truly understand the magnitude of what He told me that day. And the impact it has on my calling. Which is the reason she has to be mentioned, now, in my testimony. So that it can make sense later on. 

Next, I need to talk about The End, here.