I can’t write this without tears welling up in my eyes. My mom is incredible and still remarkable at 100 years old and as sharp as a tack. Can’t slip anything past her and she remembers everything.

She had a hard start in life. Her parents divorced in 1924 when she was only three years old. She lived in an emotionally abusive situation and went to 13 different grade schools — hard to do today, but even more difficult and a stigma back then.

She met my dad and married at 17 years old. She resolved that her children would never experience what she had experienced. She broke the cycle of dysfunctionality and was an exceptional wife for my dad for 73 before he died. She was also a devoted stay-at-home mom who wanted to devote her life to her kids.

I was the blessed recipient of that love and devotion.

In 1953 my mother heard the Reverend Billy Graham on the radio. She had never heard anything like that before and fell on her knees on the kitchen floor and asked God to save her “the way that man just said on the radio”. My mother was never the same. My parents joined Joy Road Baptist Church in Detroit.

 

That conversion indelibly marked my mom forever. My parents put Jesus first in everything and gave us three boys an example of godliness and Christian faith. They lived what they preached and they preached by their lives the truth of the gospel. Of course, they were opposed to the Catholic faith but they instilled in my a deep devotion to Jesus, the Bible and the Christian life. Their example made it easy for me to be a husband and father — I had good teachers.

Today she is in a nursing home and needs assistance to get out of bed. During the covid hysteria, we were forbidden to visit her for over a year, but we came to her window with pictures, signs and expressions of our love. Now we can take her out to lunch, for rides in the car, and especially out for her 100th birthday party celebrated with over 50 family and friends. My brother Tim and his wife Tish have been heroic through this whole time and I can’t thank them enough.

So we count each day with Mom as a treasure and know it won’t be long before she will join her husband Charlie at the Golden Gates. She never tires of saying, “I can’t wait to meet Jesus and see Charlie again.” But until then we will treasure her presence with us here.

Happy Birthday Mom! We love you!

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