{"id":5390,"date":"2020-05-03T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2020-05-03T14:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barbdahlgren.com\/?p=5390"},"modified":"2020-04-19T15:39:41","modified_gmt":"2020-04-19T20:39:41","slug":"i-remember-mama-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/?p=5390","title":{"rendered":"I Remember Mama – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Journal of Joy: Things that make my heart smile\u2026<\/em>..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One\nof my favorite old movies is I Remember\nMama<\/em>, based on the stage play by the same name and the book Mama\u2019s Bank Account<\/em> written by Kathryn Forbes\nin the 1940s. It\u2019s a true account of a Norwegian family living in the San\nFrancisco area in the early 1900s. Filled with warmth and humor, its popularity\neven spawned a TV show in the 50s called Mama\n<\/em>(definitely not to be confused with Mama\u2019s\nFamily<\/em> which aired in the 80s) that ran for 8 years. The appeal of I Remember Mama <\/em>was always family and\nespecially \u201cMama\u201d who many times is the glue that holds a family together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nwe grow up, there are so many things we forget about our mothers. My mom died 48\nyears ago when I was in my twenties, but it is amazing how much I remember\nabout her. As Mother\u2019s Day approaches I\u2019ve been reflecting on my mother and the\nlessons I learned from her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes,\nI remember Mama! In fact, I remember her so well I\u2019ll need two blogs to share\nsome of my memories with you.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember her wisdom:<\/strong> Imbued with tons\nof what we called horse sense in the Midwest, she was a cross between Dr. Laura\nand Solomon. \u201cThere are always three sides to every story: yours, theirs, and\nwhat really happened,\u201d she\u2019d say. Her theory was that many times we don\u2019t\nintend to shade the truth but we do see everything from our perspective, which\ncan be skewed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember her service:<\/strong> She lived by the\nmotto of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. If any friend,\nrelative, or neighbor needed help, mom was there. She brought food to the\nhungry, nursed the sick, and visited the lonely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember her insight:<\/strong> She\u2019d say, \u201cLife\nis not fair so deal with it.\u201d It\u2019s not something an idealistic child wants to\nhear but I learned at a young age, it isn\u2019t always the most qualified,\ntalented, or deserving person who ends up with the job, position, or first\nprize. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember her beauty:<\/strong> In her younger\ndays, many a stranger stopped mom to ask if she was a model, but what really\nmade her beautiful was how she genuinely cared for others and her giving heart.\nEven at Christmas time, everyone got a gift, even the boy who delivered the\nnewspaper. It may have only been a pencil box because we didn\u2019t have much money,\nbut whatever we had, mom was glad to share. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember her honesty:<\/strong> \u201cDon\u2019t say\nanything behind anyone\u2019s back you wouldn\u2019t say to their face,\u201d she\u2019d say. These\nare words she lived by. I\u2019m not implying she only said nice things about people\nbut whatever she said, she was willing to stand by it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember her humility:<\/strong> If she felt she\nwas wrong she would apologize, even to me and I was just a kid.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember her hard work:<\/strong> Believe it or\nnot, it took both of my parents working to keep us in the poverty we had grown\naccustomed to. I was a \u201clatchkey kid\u201d before they even had the term. Neither of\nmy folks had much of a formal education, so they took whatever jobs they could\nget. Sometimes mom would hold down a full-time job and take in ironing on the\nside. Mom never complained and I never went without home-cooked meals or the\nnecessities in life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mama\u2019s\nbeen gone a long time, but I remember her very well\u2014always with joy and\nthankfulness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*****<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear heavenly Father,\nwords can\u2019t express the gratitude I feel towards You for giving me my mom. What\njoy she brought to my heart! What lessons I learned from her! What an example\nshe set for me! When she passed away it left a hole in my heart, but her memory\nfills it with love and legacy. I thank and praise You for my mother!  <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Journal of Joy: Things that make my heart smile\u2026.. One of my favorite old movies is I Remember Mama, based on the stage play by the same name and the book Mama\u2019s Bank Account written by Kathryn Forbes in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}