Matinee

My mom I nicknamed Matinee. My mom loves movies. She'll watch anything from an old black and white to the newest Disney film. She watches them at home, she watches them in the theater, she watches them anywhere. I attribute my love of movies to her. Now she won't watch anything rated R or higher so she hasn't seen every movie in existence but she has seen the good ones. Also, because of her work schedule she doesn't typically go to movies at night since that is when she works, hence the Matinee.
Now about my mom. She wasn't the typical June Cleaver. I believe she has been compared more to Roseanne. Well she wasn't quite like Roseanne but she was funny and cool. Growing up the phrase "If mom ain't happy, nobody's happy" was probably accurate. Mom was not someone to mess with. Now sometimes I wasn't sure what the threat was but I know it wasn't good. Sometimes we might be sold to the indians and other times we might get our arms ripped off and beaten with them. I have never seen either of these carried out. But most of the time we tried to shape up, because we did not want to ship out.
As we got older, Mom got cooler. Our friends were becoming her friends. Mom began doing "I'm Fifty" sketches at girls camp. For me things suddenly changed from supposing to be embarrassed that my mom was around, to being proud that she was so "down with it".
Mom also was an example for us. She went to college with seven kids still at home and studied hard and got good grades. She graduated and became a nurse. We actually graduated the same year, me from high school, and her from college. She knew what we were going through with homework and assignments. She probably even had it worse. She definitely taught us the value of education and achieving goals. Another thing I remember is my mom sharing her testimony with us. Sometimes it was on a Saturday afternoon after we spent the morning cleaning and we'd sit around and she'd tell us her conversion story or share experiences with us. Other times is was as things came. Maybe she had a prayer answered or she witnessed a miracle. We all knew that she had faith and if she believed I wanted to believe. I wanted my own stories though, and I had my own experiences and I was able to recognize the hand of God through her sharing her stories.
One other thing about my mom is that she is strong. I grew up never doubting her ability to do whatever she put her mind to. If she wanted to move all the furniture in the house around, she could do it. If she was put in charge of organizing a huge event, she did it. She got things done and if something wasn't right she knew it. She'd pray, get an answer, resolve the issue and keep going. She was a wonder woman. She's still like that. Now if I ever need to do something hard, I call Mom to hear what she has to say. I respect her opinion and experience so much. I know there has been a joke that I take whatever Mom says as gospel. Now that's not entirely true but I do listen to what she says and most of the time she's right. I think I'm lucky to have someone as wise and as in tune with the spirit as she is just a phone call away. One last thing. My mom is a giver. She would do anything for me, my siblings, and our families. She just loves us that much. They say that when you add your children your love grows exponentially. That happened with Mom so now she just has so much love it's unbelievable. I have some friends who have crazy moms. When they tell me stories about things their moms are doing I am in shock. My mom is awesome. I tell them what she does, and they think it's impossible to have such a great mom. It isn't. My mom's for real. She is so not about the drama she is just a good person. I hope that someday my kids will think of me the same way that I think of my mom. That would make me very very happy because I love my mom. I love everything about her. And I'll say it again. I wish we lived closer together. It would be so awesome to have her here to do things with. I'll just have to take the emails and the phone calls, the blogs and the facebook statuses for now. I just want everyone to know I'm not happy about it. But if it's all I can get I'll take it.