My Ma
I have lived as an adult with my mother since 1998. It has been an education. The social dynamics alone could fill several posts. My mother whom I have always called Ma is one of the toughest people I know.
She in her deep knowledge and fearless dependence on the Gospel of Jesus Christ took on the Jehovah Witnesses that held our neighborhood (of diverse religious beliefs and a couple of atheist s too) hostage on Saturday mornings. I remember that day clearly. The nice ladies came up to the house. Ma shouted orders to invite them into the living room, go make tea, use the best tea set, and go to the ripoff corner store and buy that expensive box of Nabisco mixed cookies that held a sampling of Nabisco's best cookies in two layers, clearly Ma was rolling out her reddest carpet for the visiting Jehovah Witnesses.
Ma pulled her huge Bible with the picture of a white Jesus on it on her lap. She put her Concordance on the floor against her right leg. I don't know how those ladies did not know the battle was on but they handed her their Watch Tower Magazine/pamphlet and it was on! I have no taste for live blood sport (except for boxing). So, I did not watch the battle. I did see the results. They came back only once. Then for the rest of our lives in the neighborhood no Jehovah Witnesses came through to convert us on early Saturday mornings or any other times thereafter.
Ma if she were born to another family in another time would have been some university's prized professor. She is the one who taught us all to love reading, books, and information of all kinds. She is also the one who saw to it that we had a religious upbringing. Ma is the person who taught us to hold fiercely to family, to help each other and pray for each other to stay a family. Now, that she is nearing 95 and there are no more "old ones" other than Ma at the top of the family tree the family lessons she taught are being handed down to the next generation to carry on by us the next "old ones". May we do half as well as she and daddy did.
She in her deep knowledge and fearless dependence on the Gospel of Jesus Christ took on the Jehovah Witnesses that held our neighborhood (of diverse religious beliefs and a couple of atheist s too) hostage on Saturday mornings. I remember that day clearly. The nice ladies came up to the house. Ma shouted orders to invite them into the living room, go make tea, use the best tea set, and go to the ripoff corner store and buy that expensive box of Nabisco mixed cookies that held a sampling of Nabisco's best cookies in two layers, clearly Ma was rolling out her reddest carpet for the visiting Jehovah Witnesses.
Ma pulled her huge Bible with the picture of a white Jesus on it on her lap. She put her Concordance on the floor against her right leg. I don't know how those ladies did not know the battle was on but they handed her their Watch Tower Magazine/pamphlet and it was on! I have no taste for live blood sport (except for boxing). So, I did not watch the battle. I did see the results. They came back only once. Then for the rest of our lives in the neighborhood no Jehovah Witnesses came through to convert us on early Saturday mornings or any other times thereafter.
Ma if she were born to another family in another time would have been some university's prized professor. She is the one who taught us all to love reading, books, and information of all kinds. She is also the one who saw to it that we had a religious upbringing. Ma is the person who taught us to hold fiercely to family, to help each other and pray for each other to stay a family. Now, that she is nearing 95 and there are no more "old ones" other than Ma at the top of the family tree the family lessons she taught are being handed down to the next generation to carry on by us the next "old ones". May we do half as well as she and daddy did.
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