My mom, Agogo

When my mom was in high school, she stood up in her Baptist Church in Slater, Missouri and proclaimed that she wanted to be a missionary.  Her mother convinced her that the missionary life was not in fact the life for her.  Well, my mom believed her until she was in her 50s and the church she was attending in Kansas City, Missouri was taking a trip to a small country in Africa called Malawi.  My mom insisted that she go. Eventually she ended up moving there to teach at a University, then went on to marry her husband, Moffat.  They built an orphanage and a church brick by brick.  I admire that my mom did not let her dream die, even though it took her several decades (and husbands) to attain that dream, she went for it when she had the chance.  She never thinks or acts as if she is "too old"  or "too late" to do something.  

In honor of Mother's Day and her birthday (May 14th), I would like to blog about what I love most about my mom (aka Agogo).  

1.  Laundry.

She loves to do laundry and whenever she comes to visit she takes over doing laundry and I am not even allowed into the laundry room.  It is AWESOME!!

[caption id="attachment_218" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Ellie & Agogo"][/caption]

2.  Ellie & my Mom.

I love to watch Ellie & my mom tit tatting (talk + chit-chatting).  My mom sincerely and thoroughly enjoys spending time with Ellie talking.  After one visit, I called my mom to tell her how much I appreciated her conversations with Ellie.  The thing that I found most fascinating was that even though Ellie often repeats her stories, my mom always came at the conversation as if it were brand new and fresh.  She was always engaged.  I was most impressed.  It is so challenging to maintain interest in a story that you have heard repeatedly and to ask different questions each time.  When I expressed my gratitude for her continued presence in Ellie's recycled stories, my mom, sounding quite surprised exclaimed, "She was repeating herself?"  Right then and there I knew that my mom & Ellie were a perfect match. 

[caption id="attachment_221" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Baby Ben & Agogo"][/caption]

3.  She just rolls right into our lives.

When my mom comes to visit, she typically stays for several days to a week.  After one such visit, Thom & I mused that it was strange because it felt as if a member or our immediate family was gone.  My mom was with us the week before Ellie's last surgery and a week after her surgery.   Again, she just rolled right into our lives.  When I would arrive home, exhausted from the hospital, there would be my mom with a plate full of food and a clean kitchen.  All the laundry would be done and she would be ready for a talk or to watch a movie together.  It was magnificent not to have to even ask her to do anything, just to have it done. 

4.  Celebrates our similarities.

My mom is one of those amazing people that will seek out how she is similar to whomever she is speaking with and accentuate that.   She makes NBFs (New Best Friends) wherever she goes, partcularly on airplanes.   Even though we are not Christian, my mom often jokingly says that I am the best "Christian" that she knows.  She chooses to focus on what I do that adheres to the values she lives by rather than focusing on that I do not belong to a church. 

5.  Sense of Humor

My mom has a great sense of humor.  She loves to laugh and sometimes when I am in the heat of the moment, she is able to help me see where the fun lies. For example, when I was telling her of a recent escapade of Ben's she just started laughing because she could totally see how very similar Ben was to me when I was his age.  Payback time I suppose.

6.  Her choice of men

For the most part, my mom has married really really well.  The men she chose to be her husbands were also my father figures and each and everyone of them (well with one exception that we won't go into here and I was in college anyway so it doesn't count) added so much to our lives.  I think having such a a variety of men with such wonderful attributes enabled me to choose an amazing man like Thom as my partner.

5.  Connection

A dedication in a book I started to read said, "To my mom, my first real girlfriend."  That is exactly how I feel about my mom.  She is one of my best friends.  We can stay up until all hours talk talk talking (well, after awhile, she starts nodding off).   She is one of the people I want to call first when something significant happens.  (Although if she is on another continent, this is more challenging for me.  I have a highly difficult time pressing all of the numbers for the phone card and then her phone number, then if it doesn't go through, I get no credit for correctly pressing all those buttons. I think at some point in my life I will hire someone for the express purpose of dialing all those numbers.) 

6.  Debora Gamma

At some point, my mom let it slip that "Susan" (my older sister's name) was her favorite name.  The name she used on all her dolls when she was a girl.  When she realized the faux pas she had made by revealing this bit of information, she informed me that "Debi" was in fact my Dad's favorite name.   He even wanted to name his youngest sister, Linda, "Debi" when she was born, but alas his mother would not agree.  In
Malawi, when the family who works at the orphanage asked my mom for suggestions of what to name their daughter, she told them, Debora, after me.  Often times when she comes back from Malawi, she will bring Ellie pictures of my namesake.  It was her own little "do-over" moment...

7.  Absolutely perfect in every way.

Last month I attended my group coaching and left there feeling less than extraordinary when I compared myself with the other attendees. I felt down right ORDINARY, boring. Do you want to know what I did? I called my mom, the person who seems to  believe that I am extraordinary, “before my time” or “on the cutting edge” is how she likes to describe my family. Just a little boost of mom confidence and I was feeling better in no time. Better than chocolate. And even though she would never describe herself as the perfect mom, she was exactly what I needed.

 Happy birthday and mother's day, Mom!