by Chris Kennard
I have the best mom.
No really. I’ve done research. 97% of the respondents to my questioning stated that I have the best mom.
Okay. They actually said “I have the best mom” – (I’ve been listening to NPR and learning the fine art of spin doctoring.)
I have a very vivid memory from my childhood. We were in a store and we were all picking out placemats with our names on them. My mom has a pretty unique name (being from Star Valley), and there were no Darlene placemats to be found. Having six kids in seven years, and all of us being in the store with her, she picked a nom de comer that she probably thought of as a joke – Eve. When I would ask her why, she would grin and tell me it was because she was the mother of all living.
Last year I was pregnant with our fourth baby. I have three boys, so I was thinking that I had to come up with the perfect girl name, since this might be my only chance to have a girl. I really wanted to name her after someone special, so she could grow up with a role model and a tie to her ancestors or the scriptures. I wanted to name her after my mom and Nate’s mom…and come to think of it, Nate’s new mom and my grandma and my grandma’s mom. Unfortunately, they all have different names – and try as I might, I couldn’t get Nate to agree to Darlene Nancy Suzanne Norma Ida. Nor could I make anything from the combination. Thinking of my mom and remembering the placemat, I joked to my husband that we could name her Eve, because she was the daughter of all living. Nate, being wise and all knowing (he took a poll on that, everyone agreed), liked the name. It grew on me, and we decided on Eve.
Elijah Adam was born about 5 months later. That’s not the point.
While I was pregnant and thought it was Eve, I remembered something that Sister Hinckley does for all of her granddaughters – she has a picture of them and their mom and her and her mom and her grandma – a visual reminder of the strong and wonderful lineage that they were part of. I wanted to do that for Eve.
When I think of my mom, grandma and great-grandma, I think of love, patience, kindness and a great sense of humor. I need to be reminded of those attributes every day, and have a visual reminder that it’s possible I might have inherited some of the patience I need. They made it through some trying times, and I can too. Best of all, each of them has an incredible sense of humor, and that’s definitely inherited (I’ve just got to find mine).
This mothers day, think of your moms. All of them. Take some time to record for posterity the attributes that made them special, and if you are as inspired by Sister Hinkley’s idea as I was take time to put together a visual reminder of your heritage of great mothers.
