Howzabout "lessons our Moms are still teaching us." My Mother will be 95 on June 5th, and she is still showing me the way. She was driving a milk truck on my Grandfather's dairy farm when she was 13, and drove until a few months ago. Five years ago when my Father died, my Mother blossomed into a wonder to behold. The day after the funeral, I took her out and we got a stereo, a small entertainment center and a handful of CDs. My Mother has loved music all of her life, but my Father could get real nasty when my Mother tied to play music in the house. After we picked up the stereo, I took Mom out to lunch at one of her favorite restaurants she wasn't allowed to go to because my father didn't like it. I ordered a burrito, and she got one too. Because she'd never had a burrito and she wanted to see what it tasted like. In many ways, My Mother wanted to see what life tasted like. She was like an enthusiastic teenager, catching up on a life that in many ways had been on hold for almost seventy years of marriage. She could experiment and do whatever she wanted. Part of that freedom was to refresh her spiritual life. My Father went to church with my Mother for the last twenty or thirty years of their life together, but didn't want her to go to bible study, so she stayed home with him. My Mother taught me about God and Christ, not just by reading to me, but by the way that she lived. But, she wasn't any Mary Poppins. She loved kidding around, laughing and having a good time. And still does. At 95, she has the most curious mind of anyone I know. She's talking about getting a computer, because she doesn't want to be behind the times. She also taught me the joy of helping others. When my wife and I visit her, she is always picking up little presents for people she knows who can't get out any more. Like all good people, my Mother has always led by example. And she still is. God willing, we'll be blessed with her for a few more years, because she is still in good health and active enough to wear my wife and me out when we go to visit her.

Jerry