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David Cordell
I am not privy to the discussion concerning Debbie Maddox on Tommy's site, and I don't want to be. From what I have inferred and what I have read on this site, I would prefer that any further discussion stay on Tommy's site.
Let's try to be kind and forgiving to one another, and, on this day of all days, be thankful for our good fortune. I experienced a blessed childhood with both parents in the home. I only had two spankings that I can remember, and they were lame efforts by my mother. Of course, there were a few times when my mother responded to my smart-ass back-talk by threatening to cut my tongue out. Maybe it's a Sicilian thing. I was pretty sure she didn't mean it, but it did cause me to re-think my part of the conversation. Whatever works, I guess.
Mother demonstrated a completely different approach to grandmothering. For example, she stayed with our sons for a few days when we went to a conference. When we returned, we discovered on our living room wall about six square feet of crayon markings that looked like a practice run by Jackson Pollock, but it was created by one of our sons. When we gasped at the sight, my mother offered, "Isn't it beautiful?" Huh? Beautiful?? Of course, he was fifteen at the time and should have known better. (Actually, he was four.)
Truth is, my parents were the prototypical owl and the pussycat, but I learned much more from my mother than my father. She would sometimes tell me that my father thought I should do this, that or the other. When I was an adult, I confronted her about it when I finally figured out the the "your father" bit was ruse. She responded, "Well, I just thought you would be more likely to follow the advice if it came from your father."
Daddy was a very good man and extremely intelligent, but his idea of fatherhood was to set an example -- a passive approach. Mother was active. She was the primary parent in my life, and I owe so very much to her.
So, here is the last photo I have of my mother, on her 85th birthday, just after learning that she had pancreatic cancer. I think I have share this story before. She specified at that time that she didn't want any lfe extending treatments because she had lived a long life and had seen the effects on my father during his treatment for lung cancer ten years earlier.
Fate would intervene. Our son Rob would die a month later, and Mother would die six months later. I found out later from my sister that Mother had, after all, taken life extending treatments. She told my sister that she wanted to put more time between Rob's death and hers for my sake. A mother's love.
So, I am thankful for many things in my life, but today I will give special thanks for my mother.
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