October 2008
A tribute to a special lady
By Riney Jordan

She was one of six children in a family that changed residences constantly.

“I can’t remember all the houses we lived in,” she would say, “but my Momma always kept it clean and orderly.”

Because neither her mother nor father had a formal schooling, education was not considered a priority in her family.

At an early age, she picked cotton during the season. Her family simply moved from town to town to work in the fields, and what little money she made was handed over to the family. There was no money left for new clothing, books, toys, games or bicycles.

Oh, she did get to go to school a few months out of the year. She would enroll in November or December, but then the corn and bean fields would call and she would be back in the field in early spring.

Once, a teacher asked her to live with her during the summer.

“It was one of the best times in my life,” she would tell folks. “She made me a new dress, the first new one I’d ever had.”

The teacher taught her how to iron, make beds and set a table. And she taught her to always be positive.

“She was one of the nicest people I ever met,” she would say with resolution.

She quit going to school in the fifth grade because, as she recalled, “I was too big for the desks and the kids would laugh at me.”

She married the first time at the age of 16. A baby quickly followed, but the work in the fields continued.

“When I got married, I traveled with his family wherever there was work. I’d pick cotton for 14 hours a day, and I was good at it. I could out-pick any man!” she would say proudly.

Their living quarters were tents set up at one end of the field. The dirt floors were swept. The meals were cooked on a campfire. The money she made was handed over to the mother-in-law.

“I never got to keep a penny of it,” she would say.

For whatever reason, the marriage ended soon after a baby was born. She moved back to her parents and continued life in a wooden shack with no electricity, no indoor plumbing and a roof that leaked.

Her stay with them, however, didn’t last long. She had met a man 20-plus years older, and she fell madly in love. They married, had a baby boy and a baby girl and lived happily together for 39 years.

“Oh, it wasn’t always easy, but he and I managed,” she would say. “He started out being a rancher, but times got hard, so he did anything he could to support our family. And when things got really rough, he went to work driving a garbage truck. He’d bring home things that other people threw away. We clothed our kids with a lot of it.”

Her husband died shortly after her 59th birthday.

“It’s awful hard to give up those you love,” she once said, tears filling her eyes.

In spite of her upbringing, she was always cheerful and loving and there to help those who needed it. She went to night school in her 60s and earned a GED.

“I just wanted something to show that I wasn’t ignorant,” she would say. “I knew I could do it.”

Quite frankly, she was one of the smartest and kindest people I’ve ever known.

This wise, good-natured, beautiful woman was my mother, and she passed away recently at the age of 87. My sister and I are the two children of Lillian and Arthur.

And just like she said when Daddy died in 1980, I find myself saying over and over, “It’s awful hard to give up those you love.”

Rest in peace, Momma.

RINEY JORDAN, whose best-selling book, “All the Difference,” is now in its sixth printing, is an international speaker and humorist. He can be reached at riney@htcomp.net by visiting www.rineyjordan.com.