Mom Hung the Moon!

Mrs. Beasley

Mom! No name stirs more emotion or triggers a quicker smile; and only one name carries more authority, wields more influence, exudes more love, or shows more mercy. My mom was born in 1922 in Waxahachie, TX. Her father died when she was four and her mother when she was sixteen. She joined the Navy when she was twenty, was sent to Iowa for basic training, and then stationed at Whiting Field in Milton, FL where she met and married Dad when she was twenty-two. She raised four children and worked outside the home my entire childhood. She retired as a supervisor from The Northern Electric Company in Waynesboro, MS. My mom is now eighty-eight years old and still "push" mows her own lawn. She is a tenacious, I-can-do-it-myself lady who still thinks her youngest son [me] is "special"; and, I still think I'm her favorite child! The depth and quality of Mom's love is unmatched. She sees the best in everything I do and does not believe I could possibly do anything wrong. She knows no limits in her commitment to me, has no boundaries in her defense of me, and her belief in what I can do is not confined by my abilities, skills, or talents. Yes, Mom's love is, perhaps, the strongest, most influential love I've known. Washington Irving, an American diplomat and writer, wrote, "A mother is the truest friend we have when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us and endeavor by her kind percepts and counsel to dissipate the clouds of darkness and cause peace to return to our hearts." My mom has proven Irving's writing true for she has certainly been more faithful and more valuable than colleagues and neighbors, than peers and friends. What I have written, I wrote because my Mom has been there in the good times as well as the bad times; and to encourage you, mom, to remember: When you are overloaded with motherly responsibilities and are having a "horrible, terrible, no good day," remember there's a son or daughter somewhere who believes you "hung the moon" too!