by S. Linda Jensen

Created on: August 07, 2009   Last Updated: August 08, 2009

A mother is love, that is how we all want to think of our mothers. Even the most perfect mother has a few flaws. As humans we expect that imperfections exist in our mothers just like everyone else. My own mother is a contrast of thoughts, actions and even love.

In the early years my mother was a hardworking homemaker. Under educated, married at 14, her first child by age 16, she was a pretty young wife and mother. She and my father lived in near poverty in Eastern Oklahoma's scenic farm land in the 1940's. With her mother living in a small town an hour away and her mother-in-law only a few miles away mother had some support and mentoring.

I know she made many sacrifices for her children. As the family grew, there were four of us, she kept us clean, took us to church, we had home grown meat and vegetables for our meals. She toiled in the kitchen canning, freezing, and baking. Mother milked cows, tended a large garden of vegetables every year, she washed and ironed and kept the home and yard clean. Often there was only a pump in the kitchen to provide well water. She had few modern conveniences and only one trip to town a week.

Our home was very clean and simple. We had clean clothes even when she had to hand wash them with a rub board. For a woman with only a seventh grade education she proved her ability to run a home and raise a family was right up there with the educated, monied woman of her time.

Although my mother was pretty, she was also insecure most of her life. I came to realize she didn't have a lot of confidence in her ability to read and speak as I grew older. Even today we joke that she speaks fluent Okie. Sometimes she doesn't understand words others use or words used in books. She loves romance novels, movies, action films with lots of violence and admires affluent people. She is also addicted to television to the point it is hard to visit with her.

Mother was almost eleven years younger than my father. He adored her, she loved him. In later years they had the kind of marriage that makes everyone yearn for a divorce. By now mother had more things, clothes and money. She became less responsible for her actions more adolescent like. Mother wanted approval and attention all the time. Over time she became addicted to going to the doctors and getting a pill for every possible ache, pain or anxiety. She was still pretty, she longed for love and excitement that she felt our father didn't offer her. She flirted and got attention from men as she

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