by Jennifer Watson

Created on: July 04, 2010   Last Updated: July 06, 2010

My mother is the most amazing woman anyone could ever know or hope to meet. . My life and many other's lives have been blessed by having her in it. She raised nine children including myself on very little money and more love than most people will ever know in their lifetime. She loved my father and cared for him faithfully until his death at the age of seventy six. They had married when she was just seventeen. They would never have much in the way of material possessions but all of their children know what it is to be loved and cherished. Having nine children might stretch some people a little thin in the love and patience department, but not my mom. She made us all feel as if we were the only person in her world.

You would think mom would not have time for other people given her busy life. Nothing could be further from the truth. She has an abundance of friends and extended family. She never turned away anyone in need and there were always extra people staying at our home at any given time. It speaks volumes about her to know that other children wanted to stay in a home that didn't even contain indoor plumbing or air conditioning rather than their own more materialistic homes where less love abounded. She fed the hungry in both body and spirit. Abused children were treated with a kindness that they had never known. My mom was never a foster parent in the legal sense. She simply took people in for no monetary gain. She let them stay as long as they needed to. Christianity was a way of life for her, not a title.

Wealth or fame did not mean that much to mom. She cared more for people and her home than anything else. When asked why this is so she always answered the same things. Money or fame cannot love you, You certainly cannot take it with you at the end of your life. The only true wealth we leave behind is what others think of us.

Mom has a large extended biological family that she is also very close too. Her own mother was much like her and she was a great influence on my mother. She  raised seven children on her own after the death of my grandfather at a young age. When she passed away just four years ago there were over a thousand mourners at her funeral. She was not a famous or wealthy woman just a loving, kind one. When my mom was in the hospital having eye surgery at the age of seventy three my grandmother told me that she was worried about her"baby". That's a true mother's love if I ever saw it! I have been truly blessed and I hope when my own time to die comes, people can say that my life has mattered to others as much as my mom's has.

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