My Mother's Sacrifice

Alright.

The video I made the other day has me feeling so sentimental.
I'm missing my mother like ca-razy.
There's so much I need to know.
So much advice I need!
I need!!

Does anyone reading this here old blog remember
The Great Chicago Blizzard of 1967?

Just so happens that it was my fifth birthday.
Mmmhmm.
I still get excited when it snows on my birthday.

Today I'm hunkered and preparing for a storm that is supposed to rival the storm from 1967.
They are calling for 50 mile an hour winds, two plus feet of snow...good times.
I've got my red pot fired up with Paula Deen's Beef Stew.
 I'm channeling Paula now. 
Words out on the street about how much butter I use.
She's nervous.
She should be.



All through my chores today, I can't stop thinking about my mom, and my birthday, and that big snow storm.

For some reason, unbeknownst to me - something I'd love to ask her now - she was out in that blizzard getting my birthday present from 'Bargain Town' - later known as Toy's R Us.

Why did she wait until my birthday to get the gift?
Did she need to wait until payday?
Did she figure she had plenty of time, and she'd just hop on the bus and go get it whilst we were all in school?

There were no Doppler radars in 1967 were there?
She didn't know the snow was going to be so bad.

She was stranded in South Chicago for hours.



I remember the phone ringing a lot that afternoon, no doubt neighbors worried about her, calling, and I would answer and say 'I'm five years old and my mom is at Bargain Town' - and I'd hang the phone up.

I don't remember what my birthday gift was, but here - 44 years later, I am acutely aware of the sacrifice in the getting of that gift.

I'm acutely aware of the sacrifices my mom made on a daily basis.

I'm acutely aware that to love is to sacrifice.

It's to sacrifice trust and hope that you'll be loved back.

It's to sacrifice joy at times to grieve the choices a loved one makes.

It's to sacrifice your time and your money, and what seems to be your very soul.



Today my heart feels like it's right on that bus to South Chicago with my mom.

Full of strangers and fear, not knowing how bad the storm of life is going to be.

Oh for a Doppler radar of the future!

But sit on that bus I do, and I hold onto the handrail of faith, pulling on the call cord of joy, and getting off at the stop of hope.

And I walk through the steep hills of snow toward home, clutching the gift of sacrifice, and hoping that 44 years from now - my gift of sacrifice will be remembered and treasured as much as my mother's is.