Traveling the Rock Road

Mother’s Day was nice this year, got to spend a little time with my three favorite moms to date, my Lady Cathy, my daughter Jamie Melissa, and my daughter-in-law Tracie.  But it was also a time of reflection on others who once held this precious and hallowed title, in particular the two in the picture, my mother as a child with her mother.  I never knew Grandma since she died in 1942 from cancer, but I learned a lot about her from my mom, family members and my own personal investigation.  Cosby Jane Marshall Laxton was the oldest of her siblings and the 1^st to be married off to John Thomas Laxton, my grandfather.  It’s hard to narrow in on knowing someone who passed away 12 years before you were ever born, but as I mentioned, through the help I already cited, I’ve been able to get somewhat of a picture of who Cosby Jane was.  For example, from all accounts, she was quite an intelligent woman most likely possessing a high IQ.  This is easy to believe based on her two sons who were of the same category along with at least one of her sisters.  It would do a lot for my ego to say a certain grandson of hers also carried the same attributes, but, let’s not go there!  That’s a bragging point of dear old grandma, but like anyone, there’s always another side, hers was a constant battle with Depression.  For whatever the reason, be it biological, or possibly self-induced, Cosby would battle that great demon all of her short life.  This condition would be the major factor of a strained relationship she had with my mom leaving her with a very confused childhood.  When my mother reached adulthood, she would often look back at her early days, at times with anger, and wonder what it was that made her mom act the way she did, for you see Depression as a sickness was not understood then the way it is now.  This would be something my mother would struggle with to understand for years to come, just as her only son would in his minute knowledge of this difficulty as he was witnessing it; you see my mother suffered from Depression most likely the same way her mother did.

So therefore, as many who have had family members or close friends afflicted with this dreaded sickness can attest, life can become hard and confusing, not only for those suffering, but for the ones closest to the individual.  I have no doubt that is what sparked the Dementia in Mom’s life in her later years.

Alright, no doubt there’s ones sayings, “Geez Miller, I thought you’d have more positive things to say on the subject of mothers seeing yesterday was when we honor them, instead you’re raining all over their parade!”  Point well taken, but stay with me just a little bit longer, okay?

Ma lived independently until the last three years of her life when we had to move her in with us.  That move made for some interesting times in the Miller home to say the least, but even with the dramatic ups and downs that came often, we got through them okay.  It was during these times that I saw a woman emerge far different than the one I knew all my life.  There were times she would sit in her rocker with a far away look in her eyes but, also contentment in her demeanor, far different from what had become her norm. And at these times she would begin to speak of her mother, but not in the manner I’d grown accustomed to, but she told me stories of Grandma I never heard; stories of warmth and even her humor she had never expressed of the woman before, and they were fun to listen to.  She was finally realizing that those strange ways of her mother were something she had no control of; when that reality set in it cleared all the negatives she had held for so many years and now was finally able to see Cosby Jane in a new light, a loving mother who battled afflictions all her life, but still was the mother she loved with all her heart.  This new revelation had quite an effect on mom because it triggered several other ill memories she had to make right.  One involved a 500-mile road trip her and I made so she could make a situation right that had gone very wrong years prior.  When Ma left this world, she left it harboring no ill feelings to anyone and most of all, at peace with herself.

Mom settled a lot before she died, so much it made a huge impression on her little boy who had such a hard time dealing with her as she was that he left home at 16.  Now he (I) was seeing her the way he did when he had the innocence of youth, that wonderful mother God had blessed him with that he wouldn’t trade for anything.  My, oh my, what a precious gift a mother is to each of us!

Cosby and Catherine shared a bloodline, they also shared an illness.  But more, so very much more they shared a love that only a mother and child could have.  Maybe it wasn’t the most noticeable at times, but believe me, it was there, and it was real, just like I’m sure you have with the person you call mother, with the person you call child.  If there’s something in the way that causing a stumbling block of realizing that love, how bout starting here to find it again;

“Love is patient; love is kind.  Love is not jealous; is not proud; is not conceited; does not act foolishly; is not selfish; is not easily provoked to anger; keeps no record of wrongs; takes no pleasure in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth; love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” ~I Corinthians 13:4-7

Remember, “The loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the love of a Mother.”

AWESOME!!!