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My mom was the epitome of what a mother should be. Every positive adjective in the dictionary covers what my mother was and what all mothers should aspire to become; although, it's one of the toughest titles to live up to. There's not a day that goes by, that I don't remember how tough it must have been for her, and yet she was an inspiration to so many who knew her.

Mom was adopted as a baby by an older Czech couple, who spoke no English and owned a farm in Nebraska. She was raised with strong moral values and was expected to work as hard as any man. She didn't learn any English until she started school, which I imagine was not an easy task. When Mom was 16, she found out that she was adopted quite by accident when she went through a drawer and found the paperwork. She asked her 'parents' about it and their only reply was that she belonged to them and that nothing else mattered. It wasn't until Mom was 57, that she found out that her birth father had died the year before and her mother was quite ill.

When Mom was 17, she got pregnant and her adopted Dad made her give the baby up for adoption. Shortly thereafter, he committed suicide by drinking rat poison in his coffee. I guess the thought that his daughter had been raped in a graveyard while walking home from work, was too much for him to bear. The farm became too difficult for Mom and her mother to take care of, so they sold the farm and moved to the city.

Mom worked in a department store during the week and on the weekends would play her guitar and sing for the wounded veterans at Offutt Air Force Base. Mom had a wonderful voice and could sing any type of music, but her favorite was Country Western. She gave it all up when she married my Dad, and his idea was to have enough boys to almost have an entire football team. What's funny is that he wound up with only two boys and four girls, but that didn't stop him from treating us girls, like boys.

Dad left us kids and Mom after 18 years of marriage to be with a younger woman. Mom, who had not worked in 18 years and had six kids, had to figure out how we were going to survive. Mom tried to get state assistance until she could find a job, but they turned her down because we lived in Dad's house. Mom finally found a job working in a restaurant as an assistant cook and I worked there as a dishwasher so I could help with the finances. One nice thing about it was that we could bring home the food that we scraped off of the plates so we at least had something to eat

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