Superwoman

My mom is Superwoman. Do you want to know why? Let me tell you a story.

One upon a time, about twenty-two years ago, there were two college students, a boy and a girl, and the girl was in about the same life position I’m in right now. She was an Elementary Education major at BYU. Then the boy came home from his mission, and they ran into each other in the RB. The rest is history.

If you didn’t guess, they got married! She got further into the education program, but nine months after they were married (in the Salt Lake temple, in April. It snowed.) a baby came along. Just perfect timing for the girl be doing her student teaching! That in itself is a big deal, because I can tell you that student teaching is extremely stressful and time-consuming– some of my single friends doing it now are on the breaking point– but the bigger deal is those previous nine months. The baby literally almost killed the girl, caused living hell, and almost kept the her from graduating. But she persevered! She graduated! And she stayed at home to raise her baby as much as she possibly could. She read to her, and sang to her, and played with her, and taught her about Jesus, and set the greatest example of the kind of woman her baby should become that any mother ever has.

The next twenty years were pretty crazy. When the baby was two, she had a seizure, which was the first indicator that she had epilepsy. This entailed expensive health insurance, countless doctors appointments and medical bills, expensive medicine, and eventually a major brain surgery. The girl, who had of course become a very wise woman and mother, was with her baby, who was by this point almost a grown-up girl, literally through the entire process– at every single doctors appointment, from that first seizure, up to the very last day she was in the hospital after her surgery. There was never a single minute during those twenty years that she wasn’t serving her baby girl.

Guess what? The girl is my mom, and the baby is me! Because of my epilepsy, I wasn’t able to get a drivers license, so my mama had to drive everywhere, including early-morning seminary, summer cross-country, concerts, and about a million times down Timpview Drive for everything. She also always kept the house clean, and made good and healthy meals everyday. She practiced the piano with me everyday, even when I complained and threw my theory books on the floor next to the piano. And she never ever ever complained a single time. Ever. Oh, and she also raised three other girls.

Now you must agree with me when I say that my mama is Superwoman.