Mother’s Day has just passed, and it always causes me to reminisce about my own mother. She was truly a treasure.

Pictured are two women who overcame in life. This is my mother and my grandmother attending my wedding. My grandmother lost her husband when he was only forty-seven years old, and she was still raising most of her nine children, and she had no money. I am not sure how she made it, but she did.

My mother was one of kindest people on the planet. She did not have much materially but was loved by so many, because she was so kind and caring. My father was a stern, self-centered man, and never treated her as she deserved. She pretty much raised her eight children by herself, kept house, cooked, and put up with so much, including a man who was often drunk and scary.

Let me share a memory of my mom. My mother had a leg amputated because of diabetes that had ravaged her body. She stayed in the hospital a while, and I still remember the moment she came home. It was difficult to get her into the house, and once she was inside, it was a rare moment when I saw my mother cry. Oh, I know she cried internally a lot, but kept it from us. She was faced with the reality that life was going to be even more difficult with only one leg.

Mom soon adapted and returned to the things that she felt needed her attention. Most of her children lived out of town, so the day-by-day routine became hers again. My father had to get up at five in the morning to get to work. Daddy liked a cooked breakfast, and my mother had always gotten up to prepare it for him. He never cooked for himself, cleaned house for himself, or did much of anything for himself. After Mama’s leg amputation, Daddy still did little for himself. 

My mother would get up at 5:00 a.m., lift her body into the wheelchair, roll into her small, crowded kitchen to cook for my father. The diabetes had also taken a significant part of her vison, yet she would find a way to cook. Daddy would eat and leave. Mom would clean up the mess and go about her day trying to get things done. She also had a hot meal on the table for Dad, who would come home for lunch every day. 

My mom went to her grave at age sixty-three, still not complaining, and still struggling to do the best she could. It can bring tears to my eyes now to picture her. She had a heart attack as she tried to cover my dad, who was already in bed and was cold. She wheeled into the room to cover him and that was the last act of kindness she would ever do.

In 1970 while I was in college, my mother called to tell me that she had accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior. I was a student at a Christian university, preparing for a life of ministry. Needless to say, I was so excited.

I am still excited when I think of the day Mama called to confess her salvation. Why am I excited? Because now Mama has a beautiful home with her Lord and Savior. Mama can get around without a wheelchair. Mama is not overtired. Mama is enjoying life to a degree she never came close to experiencing on earth. (And I think she is probably hanging out with my son Bryan.)

So, on this Mother’s Day, I honor Ailene Ruth Wells. What an example of grace and kindness she was. What an example of endurance she was. I did not realize until I became a mother just how much she sacrificed for her children. I cannot wait to see her again on a great reunion day in Heaven.

Mama, thanks for a life well-lived.

“Her children rise up and call her blessed… ‘Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.’” – Proverbs 31:28-29