This is my mom, Marion Bond West Acuff, and my step-father, Gene Acuff.
My friend Robin at www.allthingsheartandhome.com blogged about my mother this week. She's doing a series on aging and wanted my mom's thoughts.
It got me thinking. As I read my mom's words, I started remembering. When I was a teenager, we didn't fight much but there were a few times....like when I wanted to shave my legs. She thought I was too young. I was thirteen. As silly as it sounds, my mother didn't want me to shave past my knees. That was a pretty big fight. We fought about my bathing suit each year. When I started dating this certain guy, she only wanted me to ride to school with him a couple of times a week. Maybe that was smart because we were young and we married at 18 and 19. :-)
But I also thought about the good things. My mother's a writer. She introduced me to words. When I was in kindergarten, she had me memorize Edgar Allan Poe's poem, Annabelle Lee. Then she told my kindergarten teacher all about it and I had to quote it by memory in front of the whole class. I hated it--and maybe even hated my mother that day. But I can still quote the poem--most of it anyway. And I loved all my Language Arts classes--even loved writing term papers.
We were a family who never missed church. My father might have let us skip a Sunday or two. Not my mother. But even though there were times I wanted to flop around the house and not go, I learned about the Bible. It didn't mean much to me as a child, but as I read my Bible now, the words feel like the pages--soft and familiar. Like home.
I have my mother's red hair and brown eyes and freckles. It took me a while to like my hair (until I was 25 or so) but now I kind of like myself--my looks. I wish I'd gotten her long legs.
My favorite thing she did was take us to the library. Nerdy, I know, but I loved being able to check out a stack of books. She let us read anything we wanted to. She wasn't strict in that area. :-)
Does anybody have any thoughts to share about your mom? If you're a teenager, you might be in the middle of a fight with her--but things change. I can almost promise one day you'll appreciate her.
Love,
Julie
