The Tale of Two Mothers

Well, good morning. This is Dicphoth with stories from the road. It's dark outside, but the birds are singing. It's five-ish, about 72 hours before what we call Mother's Day. Mother's Day is what this podcast will be about. I'm fascinated by where that started. There's lots of stories about where Mother's Day officially started, but I think it's fair to say that for the way we celebrated, at least in the United States, it began in West Virginia, it a Methodist church with a woman by the name of Ann Jarvis, who herself, all of her life was not a mother, but she loved her mother and she reflected on it by wanting to have a day to commemorate it. And in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed an official Mother's Day Proclamation that would designate the second Sunday in May each year as that day. She and Jarvis wanted to capture the care and nurturing that she felt from her own mom, and they actually designated a flower, a white carnation, as emblematic of the day, as saying this, that it symbolizes the truth, purity, and broad charity of Mother love. It's fragrance, her memory, and her prayers. I find this fascinating. The carnation does not drop its petals, but hugs them to its heart as it dies, and so too, mothers hug their children to their hearts, their Mother love, never dying. This is going to be a tale of two mothers, a young one and one who is forever young because she's now with the Lord, my mom. But let me begin it this way. You can look at Scripture and over and over again, you have mothers that are brought to the forefront, whether it's Moses' mother or Samuel's mother or Jesus' mother, if you will, and Paul, the Apostle Paul, interestingly enough, when he speaks to his sort of spiritual son, Timothy, he says something very interesting. This is in that letter to Timothy in the New Testament, 2nd Timothy 1, 5 reads like this, I thank God whom I serve as my ancestors did with a clear conscience. As night and day, I constantly remember you in my prayers, recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I'm reminded of your sincere faith which first lived in your grandmother, Lois, and in your mother, Eunice, and I'm persuaded now, lives in you also. Generational loving, generational caring and nurturing is characterized by mothers and grandmothers years ago in Washington DC. I asked five guys sitting in a room, they were a bit older than I, who in their lives had left their fingerprints on their souls, if I can put it that way, in a profound way, in a positive way, and four of the five instantly said my grandmother. Well, I want to introduce you to my friend Mackenzie. Mackenzie Matthews and I now have known each other for a number of years she and her husband, Justin, spend their time, they're both in pastor work, spend their time investing in a lot of people, but she's a delightful person and here she is, we call her Mack. So Mack, here we are, and I get to ask you some questions, but first of all, I wanted it, well this is a question, I just want to read you a couple of quotes that I just pulled off the internet, you can get a hundred of these quotes off the internet, but this is about moms, as George Elliott, life began with waking up and loving my mother's face. You like that? I love that one, that one makes me a little teary, if I think about it too long. The thing that's interesting to me that a child doesn't see very, a baby doesn't see very far, but that distance they do register is about the distance from a baby being held in one's arms to a mother's face. I just like that one. How about this one? Mothers hold their children's hands for a short while, but their heart's forever. I know that one too, I'm like, oh, you're counting on that. Yes. I might always say that people say, all the time is a thief so fast. There you go, it's true. It's so sweet. When I ask you about your mother, what's her first name? Penny. Penny. Penelope. There's an old English name, I think, but Penny's great. When you think of your mom and her care for you or her mothering, what do you want the first things to come to your mind? She is very intentional. She always has been very intentional, thoughtful, present. She was, I was thinking about her when I was a kid. Now that I'm a mom, myself, but we'd come home from school and she worked full time and somehow our house was clean. Somehow the food was always on the table that she had made at six. I know. I actually asked, I asked her, I'm like, mom, were you on crack in the nineties? Like, how on earth? I can't possibly do all of these things, but she set a really high bar, a good example of knowing and loving and presence and intentionality as a mom. So she worked outside the home. Yeah. And then of course, I read one quote that said, working mother, a working mother is redundant. It's true. So you're a mom of two. Yes. Tell me about your first one. Oh, I would love to. His name is Powell. Yes. Yep. He's, he's almost five. He's brilliant. He is brilliant. He's such an extrovert too. Yes. Which it cracks me up. He'll, he's never met a stranger. He loves to learn. He loves to talk. And he's just as sweet as can be this age. I mean, I think I've said that at every age. It just gets more and more fun, but he is so fun right now. Well, he wouldn't, you know, he wouldn't even have to be homeschooled to walk up to somebody and introduce himself, right? No, he does that. He just does it. Yeah, we went to the park the other day. We don't know anyone at the park. We just go to like the public park. We weren't meeting anyone there and say that. So there's people there and he walks out and goes, hello, everyone. Hello. That's good. That's good. That's my extrovert. And then you have a newer one. Yes. Yep. That's Callie and she's almost four months old. Almost four months old. Yep. And so she's in that stage. She's smiling and is about as cute as can be. So you have one in almost kindergarten. And you have one of your arms. Yeah. And in between those two, you've had four years, approximately. But life is what happens when you expect it's something else. Give us a snapshot seems too light and phrase. But give us a view of those four years. Sure. Sure. So when Powell was 18 months old, when we were dreaming about being pregnant again, I found what felt like a golf ball sized tumor and come to find out that it was a really scary, aggressive form of breast cancer. And I was an emerging case rushed into all the things that you do when that's what you're facing. And so had six months of chemo, the intense chemo, surgery and radiation, more chemo after that. But yeah, I think it was a whirlwind of something. I was 33 when I was diagnosed again. So 33 young family trying to like look at my son at that time. And it's like, I remember looking at his crib thinking, gosh, I don't know what I don't know what's ahead of me. I don't know. And now I don't know if you'd remember me if I left right now. And just all of the the shifting perspective that was forced from that time of, you know, one day to time, one step at a time. But it was a particularly 2022 is the year that I had a lot of treatment. And I always say I'm like, oh, I turned over every stone in that time. Like did all the treatment things. And through into 2023. But that was one of those like very unexpected curveball things that completely shifted, well, it shifted everything, shifted my perspective and shifted what is valuable and where we give our time. And I mean, there's a lot that shifted in that season. And so, you know, once it's, I've come out of that place or right now and I'm well, I'm still monitored really closely. I'm in a play different place now. But being able to even have Cali again was something that the doctors didn't know if I would be able to do. It was against the odds. Yeah, it was very against I'm not a bad guy, but that would be in bed. Yeah, it was like it's quite the Hail Mary Pass. And I had actual tests that were like, hey, this is this is really like fertility clinics couldn't have worked with the numbers that I had. They were that bad. So not just unlikely, but like very, very unlikely. And I always say there was a series of miracles because it was a desire of my heart that I grieved when we were diagnosed. Again, I was in the place of wanting to have another or I imagined my family. I love I mean being a mom and wanting a bunch of babies. But in that, the state of when I what I'd hoped for and dreamed for. I asked about it a lot with my care team. And I had a series of miracles that even my care team allowing me to try was like a huge miracle. Because of the type of cancer that I had and fear of occurrence and they just, you know, that was something that their perspective and their job is to keep me safe. And so that was part of that. And so their willingness to let me try was huge. And then I got pregnant right away, which was even in my story before Powell was hard for us to even get pregnant and stay pregnant. And so to get pregnant quickly, I'd be like, it's such a such a miracle and such a gift. So that year, the four years, I was like, oh, a lot happened in those four years. And I still pinch myself. I still can't believe that I'm like, I have a daughter and after all that, I just can't believe it. She's a beauty. She is so cute. All of our children are most beautiful. Right. But objectively, she's awfully cute. From her distance, I have a close. We're doing this around Mother's Day weekend. And my next part in this podcast is I'm going to be talking about my own mother who, if she were alive today, she would be 115 years old. She passed away at 100. And I'll talk about that more in a couple minutes on the podcast. But but when you think of what I love most or what stirs you most about being a mother, because I can try to imagine all I want, but I'm like, I don't get that. So you're right. Oh gosh, there's so much that I could say. Yeah, I mean, I think there's been the the moments of getting to be the the nurturing caretaker safe place for like these tiny, these tiny people and some of the the perspective of delighting in them and loving in them. There's just nothing quite like it or I even think, you know, even when you shared the the distance of what they can see. But I'll never forget the moment of because they hear and know my voice. They knew my voice in the womb. Yes. So even with both of them, of the moment of when, you know, they are placed on my chest and I and I say something to them in their eyes. Look at me because they know my voice. There's nothing there's nothing quite like that of getting to be or getting to to be the caretaker for them that only the mom can really be the the because my husband's an incredible dad and a caretaker in a way that he can only be the dad. But how sweet it is to be the the nurturing mom that is the safe space for kids like when the when my son hurts himself, he turns to me and wants to run to me and there's something that's a huge, just a huge honor to get to that and a delight to be known in that way and get to know them in that way. So let's take one more moment and talk to your peers other young moms. And of course, they can teach you stuff. Let's say there's somebody's listening who's who's a mother of a young child and you know, they got collic or they're climbing up for I mean all those things just any any thought of encouragement for them. It's a challenge sometimes to be present right where you are in the ordinary days of dishes and diapers and and gosh, I feel like my whole life is just moving things from room to room that need to go somewhere else or driving to and fro. There's so much unseen like it can be stressful and loud and noisy and that your time looks so different in this season. It's so squished and squeezed out in this season and I I always think about this quote. I'm trying to remember who said it, but it's a it's a quote God can really only meet us right in the ordinary life that we have. Whether that's the you know the diaper season. Yeah. The making meals cleaning again. The same spot again and again forever. I ask her. I ask her. What do you remember about the we had four under the age of seven? Said what do you say I remember anything? It's all a blur. It totally does in moments remember that. Well, it can be it can just feel like groundhogs a little bit or where there's some of those things, but I think the encouragement is to to be everybody says and sometimes it's always like, oh, this will go so fast. The amount of people are like, it goes so quick and it does and I know it because I've already I'm like it already feels like it goes fast and you want to soak it up and there can be pressure to make memories and under that vein, but I think the thing that I've come to just appreciate is trying to be regardless of what the dishes are in the scene or the crumbs on the floor or all the stuff that hasn't been folded or you know to try to be fully present in the moment that I'm in and the encouragement would be to try to be present right in the moment that it is. Yeah. Well, Mac, thank you for doing this. I think watching you in these years in you know you and Justin and I have spent time together just to see how both of you have walked through this, trusting the Lord while you're scared, you know, all those things, you know, like most of us trust the Lord of all we're scared, you know, but it's just that it's a great encouragement to me as an old great grandfather to see some of your age committed to the Lord, to your man and to Powell and Callie that it's just anyway, it's just it's just good to be around that. So thanks for doing this with me. Thank you. Now I'm going to talk about my mom. Can we? Okay. I'll see you. I'll see you later. As I said in that brief conversation with Mac, there are hundreds of quotes available to you on the internet and other places. This is what I just love. A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people promptly announces she never did care for pie. Is that cool or what? My mother was like that. My mother was born Gwendolyn Vance Boyd in the Central Valley of California in July 11, 1910. That was a time when I believe Taft was president. There were a thousand miles only of paved road in the United States. The per capita income of the average worker was $945 a year. She would endure a few years later the effects of the First World War. The great influenza pandemic. As a late teen, the crash of the Wall Street stock market, then 10, 11, 12 years of horrific great depression experiences followed by World War II. I was born in the middle of World War II in 1942. And from my earliest memories, I remembered the nurturing care of my mom in profound ways. I'm a 17-year-old at Cal Berkeley sort of struggling with my own faith back in 1959. And I lived at home in Oakland California and would drive my 150 CC Vespa motor scooter 10 miles over to Cal for my freshman year. And I remember coming home and my mom would always have sort of carrots and celery and pieces of apples and so forth from me to eat. And she always maintained that that caring character until the day she died. My mom, if she were still living in this July, would be 115. She died. She died at the age of 100, just past 100 in 2010. But when I think of her, I think of her in prayer. I remember walking in one day to our little bungalow house in East Oakland after I was back from school at Berkeley, walking in. And I couldn't find her, which is unusual. And I walked into my mother's bedroom, small house. You know, one of those almost craftsmen like Sears and Robuck, male-order houses, wasn't that, but it was of a similar style, stucco. And I heard a noise in the walk-in closet in their small bedroom, walked over by the door. And she apparently was on her knees. And she was praying. And I could hear her say, this profound prayer, oh God, don't let Dick do anything more stupid than he's already done. See him? So mother's prayer, you know, has me speaking this podcast into existence years later. When she was 54, my father, her husband, of 29 years, all of her, went his own way. They separated. And it was a very, very challenging time. She had never worked outside the home, except as a young woman. And so she moved to Southern California from our home in Oakland, and there she taught herself to type, got a job at a hospital and worked actually until she was 82 years old. And a great respect for her. But in her time of loss, she embraced her love for Jesus and her love for her family. She drew us in close, lived on her own almost all of her days. And she always had a song. She always had a laugh. Let me tell you a laugh part that I'll introduce you to a song. And then we'll be done. One of my favorite stories is she was old school. And my nephew Rick told me this story, this is years ago, that mom drove in Southern California until she was 92 years old. You might have seen her. She wasn't a little old lady from the hills around Pasadena. She put the pedal to the metal, and she thought we were still back in India, like she had spent her early years, my early years were spent in India. And you just put the pedal down and went for it. So if your road to my mother, your prayer life was increased. I just put it that way. But she was driving in Pasadena, and a fellow Rana Red Light and tea-bonder, just the really smacked her. And she was a person who always dressed to go out, whether it was a grocery store or whatever. And back in the day when they called them Nylon, she wore Nylon stockings and wore a nice dress. And if hats and gloves would still be in play in the 1980s or whatever, she would have still worn them. But she was shaken up. And the police came, they said, you all right, ma'am, she said, yes, I believe I am. She said, you sure you got hit pretty hard here. And she said, yeah, I think I'm good. And then she looked out the open window on the ground, she was sitting in the car. And she said to the officer, oh, but look, we, I'm so sorry, we killed that poor little dog. And they officer said, ma'am, said, yes, we killed that poor little dog. And the officer looked down, started to chuckle and said, ma'am, that's not a dog. That's your wig. The fun thing about that story for me is that she had to tell it on herself. She was alone in the car. So she didn't have any problem being self deprecating or making fun of herself. I love being around people like that. And I love being around my mother for that reason. But let me come back to the song for a moment here after 29 years of marriage, the man of her life walked away. And she pressed into Jesus and her, her sick, what I will call her signature song. No one ever cared for me like Jesus is something that I cherish to this day. And when she was 90 years old, we, my sister and I and brother-in-law, Ruth, my wife, we hosted her with about a hundred folks at a very nice hotel in Santa Ana, California. And along the way somebody said, Gwen, why don't you, why don't you play? She was a wonderful pianist and organist. In her 90s, she would go to nursing homes to play organ recitals or piano recitals for an hour. As she put it, for those old people. And she would start out with, with some kind of show tunes and morph into hymns and then gospel songs. But this song was her favorite. I call it her signature song. And somebody said, Gwen, why don't you play that for us? And this is my mother in 2000 at her 90th birthday party. And she would go to nursing homes to play organ recitals or piano recitals or piano recitals or piano recitals or piano recitals or piano recitals or piano recitals or piano recitals or piano recitals or piano recitals or piano recitals or piano recitals or piano recitals. So for all of you mothers out there, thank you for who you are and thank you for your investment in us. Thank you for showing us what nurture looks like and what intensity and faithfulness looks like. I understand that not all mothers have done that and I don't know any young mom who along the way perhaps at moments does it feel like a failure in some way. But boy, your care and your love for us is a wonderful thing. And on this mother's day weekend we applaud you and we we just hope that if your mother is still living just reach out to her, call the card or the flower whatever it is that can honor them this day. Thanks so much. We'll catch you later. God bless.