I was reorganizing my Google Drive folders back in February and came across this old writeup I did for a book. I don’t even remember writing it, nor do I remember the request for the writeup. When I reread it, I thought I’d create a post out of it and schedule it for Mother’s Day. I wrote it in 2011.
I was a bit taken aback when Gary Toyn contacted me about submitting an essay for this book. He said he was looking for prominent Latter-day Saints to comment on their mothers. If anything, I’ve considered myself a pretty obscure person.
I was born in a place called Moose Jaw. Can you get more obscure than that? My preschool years were spent living for months at a time in numerous small towns around southern Saskatchewan. When my parents finally joined the church in Regina, we attended a branch. I went to 6 different schools in Regina because we never stayed in a house longer than 3 years. It seemed each time we moved, I attended a new ward. I served my mission in Utah. I married someone who was a second generation Mormon on her Dad’s side and third generation on her mum’s. We live in Southern Alberta with our 4 children. I’m our ward executive secretary.
I’m just your run-of-the-mill Mormon: unremarkable, obscure, and unknown.
Yet here I am, talking about my mother, who is likely just as unknown. Whenever I am asked to write or speak about my mum, one word always comes to mind first: sacrifice.
Right from the very start, my mum has sacrificed a lot. She certainly wasn’t planning on my coming along, and it interrupted her long laid plans for school at a prestigious Canadian university. Hello, baby boy. Goodbye, full scholarship.
When she and my dad separated not many months after my baby sister was born, she raised the two of us on her own, working at pizza joints to support us. I can only imagine how stressful and hectic daily life must have been for her. My memories of the time are few, but I remember daycare (or at least being in the care of someone), her work, few friends.
I remember, as a three-year-old, making toast for my toddler sister because we were up before my mum and we were hungry. Looking back, I have to wonder if the reason we were up and she wasn’t was because she was exhausted. It’s not easy to work long shifts and come home to take care of 2 young children and all that entails.
Apparently, it wasn’t enough work though because she decided to answer an ad to care for 3 small boys of a single father in the city. So, here she was, a 21-year-old looking after her own 2 children and the 3 children of her employer while he was at work. The oldest was five years old.
And if that wasn’t enough, she ended up falling in love with the boys’ father and they were married, meaning she now had 5 children—5 and under—to care for all day long.
At one point, while the five of us suffered mumps, measles, and chicken pox all at the same time, our house was put under quarantine, and guess who remained in the quarantine the entire time? My mum.
When my stepfather was laid off about 4 years later, my mum went back to school. She never did get back to university, but she attended nursing school. Once graduated, she worked long hours at one of the local hospitals to contribute to the household income. It was a never ending battle to feed a family of growing children.
When my stepfather moved to Vancouver to find work and a home, guess who looked after 5 teenaged children on her own, then drove us through the mountains on her own with all the screaming, arguing, and fighting that comes along with a station wagon full of teenagers?
Does she still sacrifice for us now that we are all grown and some of us have teenagers of our own? Sure. Not too long ago, she scrimped and saved and sacrificed so she could pay for a week-long, all-expense paid vacation to Hawai’i. It was an amazing experience and a much needed break from the stresses of our lives back home.
But that’s not all.
How many nights has she sacrificed sleep while she lay awake worrying about whether her grown children had enough money or were making the right choices or were avoiding the mistakes she made? How many meals has she sacrificed in order to help out her children when they needed money for this or that? How many tears has she shed while shaking her head at some of the choices we’ve made? How many steps of pain has she taken to walk with her grandchildren?
I know this topic seems to be quintessential to motherhood, and I don’t write this tritely. I sincerely see my mother as someone who has sacrificed her entire life for the benefit of her children. Not because she is a mother and feels that’s what good mothers do, but because that’s just who she is.
Whether it’s volunteering hours in her calling as a stake family history director, single-handedly putting together two family reunions in two years, organizing all the logistics of a week-long vacation to Hawai’i, or the days each week she puts in as a temple worker, it’s just who she is. Whether it’s for her children or for others, she’s always sacrificing.
I’ve learned a lot from her. I’m nowhere near the sacrificer she is. In fact, in a lot of ways, I’m nothing like her. I often think of myself at the expense of others. But I do try. I know where I fall short, and I try to make improvements. I like to think I am better than I was, say, 5 years ago, but I am under no illusion that I am perfectly selfless, and I realize have a long way to go.
But thinking of my mum gives me hope. Hope that I can be better, and hope that there are others like her out there, making the world better.
