Memories of My Mother

Kathleen Lounsberry Murray was special. I don’t take that term lightly. Just ask anyone. She was a positive light to all she knew. Sadly, we only got to keep her here on earth for 45 years. Not long enough. However, we keep her alive in our hearts and through our memories.

When I picture my mother, it is in glimpses throughout time and strangely or maybe not so strangely, she is standing at a sink washing dishes. I guess coming from a family with five children, marrying into a family with six and having seven of her own, she probably washed a lot of dishes.

Many who have been raised in a big family know that it is hard to carve out special time with your parents and especially your mom. I have a few special moments to treasure.

First in flashes and maybe not always so heartwarming …why the perm in kindergarten? And, how about that orange “tent” dress. I still hate the color orange because of it …putting black olives in my lunch even when I really didn’t like them but Amy Baker brought them so I had to have them too …green shoes when you knew they wouldn’t match all my clothes but you let me have them anyway …tapioca pudding in those Tupperware parfait cups that we had to pop the bottoms on in the cafeteria…Spanish rice for dinner on ceramics night …tuna noodle casserole whenever Dad wasn’t joining us for dinner (he hated warm tuna) …home parties of all sorts, we loved this because (1) we got some of the special foods and (2) sometimes we even got to go to the movies while you hosted …drive-in movies with a giant bag of popcorn and that huge container of kool aid we brought with us from home and us kids sprawled out all over the back with the seats down and blankets, we never watched TV or even movies at the drive-in without a blanket …birthday cakes, mine were, most of the time, angel food with 7-minute icing …girls scouts; my biggest memory was of the meeting where she taught us to set a dining room table formally with all the different flatware and told us when and how to use each one. Picking cake decorating as our troop badge one year. This led to she and I helping our neighbor Robin make flowers when she had a big wedding cake to do …breakfast, early on, she tried with cream of wheat, oatmeal or cereal; but, we were not big breakfast eaters. As we got older, it became a plastic cup of instant breakfast or a pop tart as we raced out the door. We reserved the breakfast with eggs, bacon, pancakes, etc for Friday nights, Breakfast for Dinner night. Still a favorite.

Mom quietly made memories.

The spring before I graduated from High School, I went to the Ivy Door, a small specialty clothing shop in Manassas and layed away a bunch of clothes that I wanted to take to college with me the next fall. I made a payment every week when I got my paycheck from Kline’s. When I came home from graduation ceremonies, there were all my clothes. Mom had gone and quietly paid off my layaway and picked them up.

She did this at the bridal shop with wedding stuff too. I had worked at Jeanette’s; Trish was working there when I got married. I would go in to make my next payment and she had already been there.

When I was home from college for Thanksgiving, Mom found a small tree and chose some ornaments from the family collection and quietly put them in the car for my return to campus. She couldn’t imagine me not having a tree for those few weeks until I came home for winter break.

When I was still living at home but working at my first real job as a computer programmer, I would get up and walk into the kitchen to find fresh cut tulips, irises or lilacs carefully wrapped in a wet paper towel surrounded by foil for the vase she had given me for my desk.

One of the girls’ favorites, when we went to the grocery store with Mom, she would buy a box of ice cream sandwiches or other treats and we would break that box open and eat them on the way home. The craziest one was when she picked one with 12 sandwiches and there were only three of us in the car. We each had to eat four. Why you may ask? Well, if we ate any from the box, there was not enough for everyone at home, so we had to get rid of the evidence.  You may think that was a dream come true. It was not, we struggled to get those fourth ones down.

Another glimpse of Mom is of her at the ironing board. Back before steam irons, we had to sprinkle all the clothing with water. We used a Pepsi bottle with this sprinkle head that popped in the opening. We sprinkled and rolled them. Then Mom would stand for hours at the board, ironing.

We didn’t go on many vacations as you could imagine with seven kids. But, even more the reason, my Dad used his vacation time to take the Boy Scouts camping. He took the boys with him which I guess was somewhat of a vacation for Mom. One year, Mom and the assistant scout master’s wife decided to take all the kids not with the Dads, camping at the lake. We pitched two tents, one for the Shaws and one for the Murrays. The moms stepping it up.

I could go on and on, but, I will stop here as the tears are making it hard to type. Love you Mom!!!!