She was God

This story left me speechless, though clearly not for long.

I have the privilege of coming to know a man in New Orleans who has an amazing life story.

His Mom, in particular, stands out. He calls her, ‘My inspiration.’

Here’s the skinny. Her husband left her when their 5th child was born. For 20 years, she worked 2 jobs, 6 days a week. Up every day at 4 a.m., to the bus station, to work by 7:00 a.m. and back home by 7:00 p.m. Never missed a day of work for vacation or sickness. She taught her boys how to run the household in her absence, and made them learn to be responsible for their actions. “She taught us that doing the right thing was always the right thing,” as he phrased it.

She never complained once, he said, about her incessant demands from work and family, and never let her kids complain. She raised them to work hard, love God and each other, he said.

But it was, for me, this line describing her that stood as the crowning truth of her character: “She was our rock. She was always all about us, never about her. When we were kids, she was God.”

I hope my kids will one day be able to recall even just one moment when this was as true of me as it clearly was of her.