Barneyisfat

Today, my mother said hell. When I was nine my mother said crappy and we all giggled. It was the first time we had ever heard our mother – Saint Debbie the Meek – swear. It was today that she simply stated the fact that her life was a living hell. No one giggled at this cuss word.

In this room ,the ceiling crumbles, mother begs for carpeting, a sadly tilted Christmas tree gives mother comfort – she will at least have a fun story to tell people, too few ornaments, though. The couch she received as a gift, the rocker from her grandmother, the hideous green chair from her grandfather (the one I hope to inherit,) her greatly prized grand piano sits wonderfully in one corner of her living room – taking up, it seems, most of the room. The matching picture frames around the beautiful pictures of her two children. The one surrounding me was bought four years after my sister’s frame was purchased. Debbie is happiest that they practically match. Each room in her house is comprised of small reminders of victories and defeats. The living room is her main room and contains most of her victories, and perhaps her most looming defeats.

My mother was a single parent. Our father is alive, married to our mother, and lives with us. My mother raised two children by herself. As children we almost never saw her cry. When her grandmother’s died in succession she didn’t cry. Her back gave her considerable pain, a disk slipped when I was born – I’ve been told that at times she couldn’t stand up, but I never saw my mother wince or hear one breath of complaint. She knew I would blame myself. My mother lives the life of a saint.

In times when life is hard, when life is a living hell, most people give up. My mother presses on. Her husband’s health problems place him in fits of fury. He will be fine one minute and screaming the next. A sensible woman would have divorced years ago, but Debbie isn’t sensible – she’s a saint. She lives her life, every day, for God alone. She raised two children who love God (who could improve a good bit in showing it, yes,) she leads the most active youth ministry at my church (at a church which pays a youth leader,) and she stands by her husband (when most would turn and run.)

Her world, like the ceiling in her living room, is crumbling. Her love for God keeps her life intact and her prayers hopeful. I will never be a saint. I’m too selfish and needy. My mother chooses to serve everyone around her with the sole exclusion of her personally happiness. But, she didn’t raise my sister or me to do the same. No, she inspired us to fight. Perhaps that is why I think my mother is most worthy of sainthood.