Happy Birthday Mom!!

Two days ago, on Tuesday Dolores Crockett would have been 79 yrs old; my dad, Henry would be 82... have they really been GONE that long now? (My mom passed away in April of 2002, my dad in October of 1995)...how old am I again...? Well, not as old as I like to admit, however my folks had me LAST... the end of eight babies. Those who know me are aware that I have three older sisters; wait, that's only four kids?... correct, you see, my mom lost four babies... 4...four...FOUR... let that thought roll around in your mind for a moment.

Due to Mom's size (5 ft nothin', less than 100 lbs) and poor perinatal care (she was allowed to smoke AND drink alcohol) she was unable to carry babies throughout the final trimester. So, (aside from my sisters and me) they were all born at around 30 weeks and weighed less than 3 lbs. Joseph, John, David and Donna breathed air for only a few minutes, hours, or only a few days. I often wondered why my folks had not just given up? There was just too much pain to endure in losing four children. Why contiunue? I don't really know... never probably will. BUT, THEY DID! They...just... did... it! They had more babies despite the fear of losing another. I wondered how I would've dealt with that magnitude of emotionally, physically demanding pain had I been the parent in their situation.

As hindsight is 20/20, I can see the road map that they took, that we travelled TOGETHER AS A FAMILY forever stained by such a devistating loss. I witnessed the mark it left on my mom as I often wondered, even fought vehemently against my mother's WORRYING nature... she was the best of the BEST when it came to worry. When I was an infant, I experienced febrile seizures. At 3 yrs of age I had surgery to correct a double hernia. I'm fairly certain that she thought I'd be dead before my 10th birthday. There were the times during potty training when I would run outside to relieve myself in the middle of the street amidst the passing cars. There was the time I was pushing the Tonka truck down the sidewalk, tripped and split my head open.. and so many others... so little time, such MUCH to worry about... the chronic nose bleeds, the spills on the bicycle because if Evil Kneviel could do a stunt or fly off a jump, then I could too. It seems that I was always sick with a cold or the flu. She was always pushing flat 7up, salteens, chicken soup and aspirin.

Then there was the caring, cooking and the feeding, "Eat, Eat!...Did you eat yet?" of us and every single person who passed through our home. TONS of food! Even as a grown man coming to her house I could probably count on one hand the number of times that I DIDN"T eat a full meal. And then when I left... "Oh, here take this loaf of bread, these eggs and this pack of (batteries, paper towels or various sundries). It was 'buy one get one free' day and I just don't have the room!" When my girls came into her life along with my sisters son Matt, she was renewed again in her quest for new levels of worry and new mouths to feed. Soon, I began to see her "worry" in different light: LOVE. Yes, love was the reason and the only true reason for her to continue along a difficult path; even when my father died in 1995 and Mom began to experience debiltating weakness from a lifetime of health problems, she fought for every inch that it took to be a part of our lives. In time, I began to see her small acts of service: remembering a birthday with a gift or a card, attending family functions or grand-kids recitals, a phone call with a kind word, a hot meal, all orchestrated by a women who couldn't drive a car or could barely leave her easy chair without assitance. I could go on and on...

Thank you Lord for my mom (and my dad too). I couldn't imagine it any other way, with anyone else. Thank you Father for the simple, short journey that you arranged for us to take together. It really was a brief dance in the moonlight, wasn't it?...