I REMEMBER MAMA

What a wonderful time of year, Mother's day! And no matter who you are or where you are you always remember your own mother at mother's day. And what wonderful memories that I have! My mother, Nell, LaNelle, Grandma Nell or Mama was a wonderful lady! She loved life and loved living life! She was a "fun" Mama and a "fun Grandma"! She never met a stranger and had a heart of gold. She went thru life loving everyone with everything that was in her power.
She was the baby of six and loved her family with all her heart! She only had one sister, Audrey, who was older than her by 8 years, and she was very close to her. But she worshipped her four brothers! But she was closest to her brother Corbin, who was only four years her senior!
I always hoped I would look like her when I grew up, but she had beautiful brown eyes like Jacob and Noah and dark olive skin! I did not have a chance of looking like her with all my redhair and freckles! I stayed with my grandparents a lot as a little child and so when I saw my
Mama it was a treat above all else! I want to tell you what I learned from Mama!

I learned how important "family" was. When I was 6 Mama married a man named John Roberts and for the first time in her life had a little"money". I cannot tell you what I got that Christmas, but I remember Grandma Nell wrapping a huge box of presents for my U. Preston and his family of 6, who were having a hard year! from her I learned to GIVE TO OTHERS FIRST. When I was a teenager one of my friends from church had a thyroid operation and all of her hair fell out. What did Mama do? She brought her to her beauty shop each week and gave her oil treatments to stimulate Delores's scalp! Now this family had five children and very little money, so no charge was ever made! Once she knew a preacher's wife who was in the hospital with Pneumonia and had no insurance-she paid part of the bill and they never knew it! Mama gave when she did not have it to give and found joy in the giving not praise for doing it! There are many, many stories like this!
But I want to talk about her great love for her family, when U. Bill and A. Bertie's newborn passed away, my mother stayed by A. Bertie's side for days helping her any way she could. Later on a few years later, she would be the one to call all the family, when A. Bertie and U. Bill had a horrible auto accident and A. Bertie was killed. She was there in the good and bad times and nothing was important to she and her brothers and sisters as their parents. Each year come rain or shine she helped get a family reunion together where they all met at Mama and Daddy Kees and sat up all night telling wonderful stories of their youth!
What a wonderful life I had as a child to watch such a giving and wonderful woman live life the best she knew how. Yes, there were some demons in her life, but she overcame them and moved forward, loving and giving as she went forward! She never judged anyone! She was only there to lift them up and help them move forward with their lives! She had a great and wonderful love for her grandchildren. How happy she would be today to see all these wonderful children in this family and know of the wonderful lives you live and how you each one love and care for your family!
I am so gratful for a mother who knew and understood, (without ever having been taught), that we are children of a Heavenly Father that loves us and wants us to be kind and caring to all that pass our way, she learned this from her wonderful parents, my beloved Mama and Daddy kees and I watch as it is being passed on to you and I am so grateful for this! Mama trulyunderstood that "if you treat a man like he is the Savior he will become like Him! I will always remember, love, and be grateful for my wonderful mother!