Usually we have to grow up to truly appreciate our mothers. A child
(much like myself) will test the waters of her mother’s love…sometimes
with just a wiggling big toe and other times splashing and laughing neck
deep.
I have grown into a new love for her, Brenda
Leebrick, my mother. Her name means “sword” or “torch”. She probably
doesn’t feel much like a piercing sword or a flaming torch…but sometimes
we have to point out the obvious.
She grew up big city.
Nice house, nice cars, tanning by the pool with her girl friends most
days of the summer (seeing who could get the darkest of course!), and
very little work was done around the home for her parents. Often times
their family would make trips out to their relatives who owned a small
farm. She embraced that kind of life and soaked up every moment while
she was there. The fresh air, the livestock, going fishing, the
simplicity of life! This was her dream!
Her dream come true
farmer boy pulled up in a blue Ford Falcon. He was a stark contrast to
the city boys she grew up around. Farmer tan and all! She was
immediately attracted to his lack of desire for materialism. Simplicity.
What a breath of fresh air he was to her!
After several
motorcycle rides and cruising in the blue Falcon, they eventually became
Mr. and Mrs. Leebrick. Off to the farm she went leaving the pavement
literally in the dust! Little did she know what the years ahead would
hold!
Sometimes my mother reveals a memory of those days and
I get a glimpse of her courage. I imagine her now, in my minds eye,
rolling up her city girl sleeves, trying to ignore the dirt under her
nails, and learning about the hard-working farm. There were seemingly
endless late nights breathing life into their 600 head of sheep.
Carrying armfuls of newborn, nearly frozen lambs into the house to be
bathed in warm water. Making bottle after bottle of milk replacer to
give to sweet little happy tails that would wag and wiggle as they
sucked the bottle dry. One memory in particular leaves me in awe of how
hard she worked; walking into the trailer house, where they lived at the
time, and feeling the exhaustion sweep over her, she looked at the
linoleum and then at the carpet and decided the carpet would be a better
place to pass out. So there she crashed and fell asleep still clothed
and smelling like a flock of sheep.
There was loneliness
from leaving behind what she knew (the city, parents, and friends) and
stepping into a whole new culture…agriculture. Marriage is one thing to
get used to…she had a whole new world to get used to! One of the times
she didn’t feel very lonely was when she would use the phone. She
explained that it was like going back in time because she suddenly had
to use a party line! There were days when throwing up her arms and
running back home looked like the easy way out. But she stood and took
one step in front of the other. She pressed forward and persevered.
Being an only child herself I’m sure it was sometimes mind
boggling to watch us kids wrestle emotionally and physically with one
another! The ups and downs and the ins and outs of her children being
siblings was, I’m sure, very hard to take! I will never forget the time
my brothers and I decided to become like pigs and wallow in a huge mud
hole we found out in a field. My mom looked rather mortified when we
came slopping up to the house drenched head to toe with just our white
teeth shining through!
My mother loved us courageously. She
could see our promise and fought for it. She shed tears for us that we
will never know about. She rejoiced when we rejoiced and hurt when we
hurt. She was our momma bear! She sometimes tells a story of angrily
chasing a ram away from her oldest son, Daniel, with a pitch fork (or
something like it) after the ram decided Daniel didn’t belong in his
territory. I love the memories of the times that she would just listen
to me cry when it seemed like the end of the world was swallowing me
whole. She was strength and the light at the end of my tunnel.
As I am growing up, my mother’s courage gives me courage. Courage to
roll up my sleeves and embrace the life that God has set before me.
Courage to take one step at a time.
