Mom…

(reposting from previous Mother’s Day)

This was my Mom, Delphy Diseker. It’s another Mother’s Day since she passed away, and I felt like making a small tribute to her here.

[break]

Delphy Jane Hill was born in November, 1916.
[break]

She was the youngest child of Andrew Johnson and Anna Lexonia Hill.
[break]

Andrew was a coal miner,
[break]

and so Mom grew up in the coal mining camps of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee.
[break]

She was a shy girl,
[break]

but she grew into a very headstrong woman.
[break]

My uncle Earl once said of her that “she would argue with a fencepost,” she was that strong-willed.
[break]

It must have been one of the things that attracted my Dad to her, since he was just about as determined and strong-willed too.  Mom and Dad married in 1935, at the height of the Great Depression, but Dad never found a job he didn’t want to do, although coal mining was his first joy.  Mom worked hard both at home, and when they needed it, at various jobs.
[break]

Shortly after Mom and Dad married, my brother Darrell and sister Anna came along,  just before World War II.
[break]

During the war, Mom and Dad both worked in the defense industry, and just like many women of the time, she was so proud to do her part to help win the war.  Dad worked on tanks, and Mom put rocker-boxes on the engines of B-29 bombers.  I’m not sure to this day what a rocker-box is, but it was vital to the engine, and therefore an important part of the planes.
[break]

After the war, Mom and Dad would take my sister and brother between Michigan and Kentucky, depending on where there was work.
[break]

It was late in their lives when Mom and Dad found out they would be parents of their last child, yours truly.  Mom was 42 and Dad 57 when I was born, which was hard on them, having a new baby to take care of.  It was hard on Mom physically too, and I’m thankful that she (and I!) made it okay. They both were determined to see that I grew up well, and Mom especially wanted me to succeed in school.  Even though I wasn’t the best student, their determination rubbed off on me, so that I did manage to graduate and go on to graduate college (eventually).
[break]

Dad taught me to work hard and finish what you start, but Mom taught me to also think about doing what was right, to live life such that whatever I did, I could do it without being ashamed to show my face, especially to myself.  I did inherit her shyness, which was painful early on, and from both of them I got the genes for determination (or mule-headedness, truth be told). I wasn’t the best kid, without a doubt, but I have always tried to live my life so that they would be proud.
[break]

They’ve been gone for a long time, and occasionally I still dream about them, sometimes.  Those times I miss them terribly, especially Mom, but I have faith, the faith they showed me and which I came to understand from them, that I will see them again, thanks to God’s grace and acceptance of Christ Jesus.

Faith that I will see them again, that death is not a permanent end, and faith that God is keeping them until we meet again, that tempers the momentary selfish sadness at not having them with me here and now.
[break]

I love you, Mom!