My Mother's Cards

My mother never gave up writing letters and sending cards. No matter how much technology was advancing, she would say "people LOVE getting a hand-written letter or card"! She would never even type her letters, although an expert typist, but write them in that beautiful practiced, flowing script of hers. I particularly remember her "r"s. They looked just like those in cursive writing books: the little upwards rising tip at the top of the "r", flowing downwards, then up into a smaller point, then down and around to meet the next letter. This might sound unbelievable, unless you have actually seen a cursive writing handbook! It was taught a certain way, and we students struggled to achieve that "r". I must say: I never did. My cursive "r's" look like a small mountain top, the best I could ever do! I heard they don't teach cursive in schools anymore. I'm not sorry to see it go!

I can remember every single card Mom sent for the birth of her grandchildren. I didn't just stop at one, two or three either: I had eight! I wasn't the best at calling or sending cards either. Actually, I was the worst. A complete opposite of my mom. As an artist, though, I sometimes enjoyed sending home made cards, a letter with drawings, sometimes on just a scrap of paper. I married twice, moved around the country for my husband's career, just as my mother had with dad. I had a first husband who was a skilled worker, but passed too soon from cancer. Then I married a minister, who struggled to fill his church and come up with a salary. Sometimes, if it was a choice between a card and a pack of chicken, the chicken would win! As I moved around the country with my second husband, at times I would neglect to even tell my mother where I moved, but somehow she would ALWAYS find me. Of course I would apologize, try harder to keep her up to date, and still fail miserably. She didn't live long enough to see my short third (and last) marriage fail after two short years. He wasn't particularly good to my children, so he had to go. I have never married again.

My mother and father moved around the country too, in their early years of a 32 year old marriage, to further his career. Yet, after all those years, their marriage ended in divorce, and my father remarried 4 days later, to the woman he started living with during their eight-month-long divorce. After that, he moved away from town, moving at least six times with my. stepmother. She was not kind to me, and my father and I didn't speak for about 10 years, only after she became ill with a brain tumor.

My mother and I stayed as close as we could long distance. and though she called at least once a week to get details of my life and her grand kids, she also continued to lament about dad. But her cards still came, and were so uplifting to me as a single mom. In the cards she would never complain about dad, or how hard her life had become without the income of my Electrical Engineer Manager father. She struggled just to pay the bills, went back to business school and graduated while still holding a job and seeking promotions. I was so proud of her, proving that she could make it as a single woman, after the children were grown and away, and with the small amount of support stopping too.

Even alone, never did any holiday pass, or birthday, or illness, or birth of a baby, or anniversary, wedding, even a snowy lonely winter day. or summer vacation, or any vacation for that matter (even her's and dad's when still married) without receiving a sentimental personally chosen card, and accompanying letter. And mother never cared about the cost of the card: only what it looked like, what the message conveyed, was important. She would add comforting thoughts like "I'm praying God puts his angels around you and the kids", and "I'm with you in spirit and never I forget to pray for you!"

I remember the time I had a terrible miscarriage. My second husband and I were living in Houston, Texas at the time. Without insurance in that church position, I was relegated to a small public hospital. I was in a ward with other women getting their babies beside their beds. I was all alone, recovering. Our marriage was already struggling at that time, he came to see me only once. But he was trying to take care of the kids as well as work, which wasn't an easy job for him. I came home absolutely deflated-- this was my first (and only) miscarriage. But I went to the mailbox one morning to find the most exquisite sympathy card ever, with a heartfelt note from Mom detailing her miscarriage after my sister Carol, which I barely remembered at age five. She expressed much of the heartache and pain that I felt and was still feeling. Her words helped me find the comfort which she found afterwards, and a sense if renewed faith.

I remember, that at the time, I would read those oh so personal, genuine, and loving greetings, smile, feel better... and lay them aside. Oh how I wish now that I had kept them all, even if they had become an entire tub full!

Mom has been gone for quite a few years now, the victim of an untimely death from pneumonia. And I know that no computer greeting, email, text, or any social media sites would have EVER replaced her cards, letters and notes. She would have still been sending them out in the same old-fashioned way. How I long to be able to go to my mailbox now, and pull out a lovely, encouraging card from Mom, especially in these uncertain days of a worldwide pandemic, political upheaval, global crisis, my own health struggles,and children's and grandchildren's problems. My father, at age 100, is in the nursing home now. I came from the West Coast, to live in his Midwestern house and take care if him for six years. I'm not sure at this point, whether to stay here, or move back West. I do so need mom's advice on this!

If she were still here, I would get those cards and greetings again. If only.

And this time, no matter what, I would lovingly save them all.