"My Angel Mother"

My mother Betty H. Perry on the right and her sister Kathyrn H. Green on the left at Mabry Mill.

            Jane Tesh and I are not without mothers on Mother’s Day because our mothers Nancy and Betty are gone to Georgia. They are going to spend a week taking care of my Aunt Kathryn, who is in a nursing home suffering with dementia and recently fell and broke her hip and then last week fell and broke her arm. So, without my mother today I got to thinking of the self-sacrifice of my mother and Nancy for going to Augusta, Georgia to take care of a sister and her friend’s sister.

            My Aunt Kathryn raised two daughters Kathy and Ann as a single mother after the death of her husband Robert of a heart attack when my beautiful first cousins were teenagers. She worked for years at the Medical College of Georgia in the mail room. My cousin Kathy is a CPA and a grandmother herself. My cousin Ann has PhD  level education in education and is the grandmother of three and is fighting her own battle with cancer.

            Kathryn Hobbs Green was one of those people who not only talked about being a good Christian, but was a good Christian. She walked the walked following Jesus’ teachings. She was one of the best human beings I ever knew. When I was a grown man I would still get birthday cards from “Sis” as we called her. Now, she like her mother Elizabeth Prescott Hobbs is dealing with dementia and her children and grandchildren are dealing with it. Every woman in my mother’s family seems to have to face to this disease and the horrible effects of literally losing one’s mind.

            Abraham Lincoln said of his step-mother, “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” Having lost his birth mother to disease as a child, Lincoln was lucky to have a stepmother who encouraged him to ready and that learning was a good thing. Most men believe their mothers are saints and I am one of them. My love of history and books comes from my mother who reads voraciously and who thought nothing of loading her only child in a 1964 white VW and carrying him to Monticello or more importantly she took me to visit Icy and George Elbert “Shug” Brown when I expressed an interest in J. E. B. Stuart’s birthplace although years ago.

            Today our (Jane and I) mothers are acting as angels of mercy taking care of my aunt and giving my cousins a few days to have their own lives. I don’t mind being without my mother today because she is doing more important work and like her sister. She walks the walk in Jesus’ footsteps not just talking about her Christian faith, but actually doing something few of us can do. Living it.