My Mom, Birthdays, and Basketball Memories

Happy birhtday to my mom! She is 64 today - 20 years older than I am. We were reminiscing about Kentucky Basketball this week. It may mean nothing to you, but this is the 20th anniversary of "the shot" - the game winning shot by Christian Laettner which gave Duke the last second win over Kentucky in the NCAA tourney in March of 1992. I remember that night so clearly. We were all sitting in the living room of the house I grew up in in Kentucky. We were getting ready to celebrate another Kentucky win - until Laettner, with 2.1 seconds left, shot that nightmare shot. All these years later you can go to a UK game and see "I Still Hate Laettner" t-shirts. We haven't forgotten.

As we talked about that night my mom reminded Steve and I that she had just turned 44 - which is how old I will be soon! It was a strange thought to look back and see her then and look at myself now. She was so young! Man, I was so young!! I was pregnant with Victoria. Oh so long ago and yet some days it seems like just yesterday. This year I can watch Kentucky basketball and the NCAA tourney with my mom and my daughter - who herself is almost 20. My brain cannot fathom this! We have all changed. It is a beautiful thing. My mom is a beautiful woman. I can only begin to describe her to you in a few short sentences. She is a servant who loves the Lord Jesus Christ first and foremost. She loves and serves her family faithfully and

self-sacrificially. She has taught me much about caring for others, community, cooking, being a wife, being a mom, and growing in my faith. She and Dad are both such blessings to me and my family. I am grateful!!

It was fun to talk about "the old days" and look back and remember how thankful I was for Mom then. But little did I know that the older I get the more thankful I would become for her - and for dad. I love them both! So, for Mom's birthday, let me celebrate her! I thank God for the gift He has given me.

I have shared this Wendell Berry quote before, but I will share it again. This expresses how I feel about my mom: "As I went about my work then as a young woman, and still now when I am old, Grandmam has been often close to me in my thoughts. And again I come to the difficulty of finding words. It is hard to say what it means to be at work and thinking of a person you loved and love still who did that same work before you and who taught you to do it. It is a comfort ever and always, like hearing the rhyme come when you are singing a song."