Next week I will celebrate the first Thanksgiving without Mom. I decided to share a few stories as a tribute to her as we head into the holiday season.
There are so many blessings I received from my mom over the years, but one that really stands out is all the ways she cooked and ran errands for me and Kyle when I was too weak to do those tasks after the transplant.
It’s also fun to recall and share what friends and family remember about my mother. “Yesterday I found a few dried apples your mom had made and you’d given to me years ago,” one friend wrote inside her sympathy card. “They are the best dried apples I’ve ever tasted.”
She was right. They were the best. Mom thinly sliced the apples from her orchard and then dried them to a crisp. We enjoyed those apple snits, as we called them, for many years. I can still see the dehydrator on her kitchen table drying the next batch of our favorite snack.
But it was a note from my cousin that brought the tears. My cousin wrote about how Mom was a great lady to whom family and faith were important. She recalled how Mom gave many, many hours of time to people and organizations that needed help. “No matter what was dealt to her,” my cousin wrote, “she handled it. Your mom was a strong, resilient woman who was active until she could no longer participate in the activities she loved. Goldie’s life was well lived and is indeed a blessing.”
My mother had dealt with a lot of trauma and heart ache during her life. My father had died in an electrical accident when he was 49 years old. Mom experienced every kind of abuse growing up and in her second marriage. Even with the last 10 debilitating years in a nursing home, she never complained. She never said she hoped Jesus would soon take her home. Not once.
Remembering the Blessings in the First Thanksgiving Without Mom
So this Thanksgiving I want to express my appreciation for the blessings of my mother. She left a wonderful legacy of what it looks like to have a deep faith in Jesus and persevere through many difficult seasons. But I’m also thankful she is now living in a peaceful, beautiful place where pain and heartache no longer exist.
If you, too, have lost someone in the last year, maybe you want to take some time this Thanksgiving to remember all the special blessings they brought to your life.
And remember to thank the Lord for his many blessings in your life,
Georgia Shaffer
Scripture “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever,” – Psalm 106:1
