The Promise

Mother was a dynamic, caring and hard-working woman all of her life. She spent every day working, either on the farm, or in the house looking after Dad and me. She never complained about her lot in life or about the things she didn't have. She just did what she had to do and carried on from day to day, always living in the shadow of my father, who was the provider, the decision maker and always, unquestionably, the head of the house. She was born in small town Ontario in 1913, and always lived within ten miles of her place of birth. She had two older brothers who were sixteen and eighteen years older than Mom, both of whom predeceased her by many years. At the time of her death Mom, as far as anyone knew, had lived longer than anyone in her family.

It was sad to watch her mind failing her and to watch the slow downhill slide. By the age of ninety she no longer remembered where she lived, or what day it was. Things like the seasons seemed to have lost all meaning to her. One day I was sitting on the front porch with her enjoying just about the nicest day we'd had all summer when she asked me if I had all my Christmas shopping done. I hoped she was making a little joke, but really knew better. I just laughed and said, "No."

"Well," she said, "You'd better get at it. Those kids will need presents under the tree tomorrow morning."

We had to laugh at those little things, because if we didn't life would soon have become an unbearable string of tragedies for us. We also needed to find the humor in those situations that threatened to make us angry. It would have been so easy to get angry sometimes and I must admit that I lost my patience more than once, but Brenda was always there with a smile and a loving touch to calm me down and help me see things clearly.

Bren is the real hero in our house. Once all the kids were off to school, Brenda started her own business. She was good at it and worked hard every day. Before long it started to show good results and soon she was on her way. She gave up that fast growing and extremely profitable business, to fulfill a promise that she made to Dad. He had asked her to make sure that neither he nor Mom were ever put into a nursing home. Being the perfect daughter-in-law, she agreed and her future was set in stone. You see my wife would never knowingly break a promise. I never knew about her . . . Read the rest @
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Religion

Mom married late in life, after her own father died, and for that reason she was more than forty years old when I was born. My parents moved onto the farm, they had bought in 1952, and took my maternal grandmother with them. Two years later I was born and our little family was complete. Grandmother lived with us until her death in 1959 when I was five years old. I don't remember much about any of my grandparents, as they all died either before I was born or when I was very young, but they must have been strong people, because my parents both inherited a strong work ethic and a great love for their family.

Although he was the head of the house, Dad did not force his views and beliefs on Mom. She was free to make up her own mind on subjects such as religion. That was the only thing in their lives that I know they didn't agree on. In the late 1950s Dad became a member of

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