A little about my mother

My mom, ,me and my sister Lisa

I am not a fan of the month of May. My mom's birthday was the 13th and she passed away on the 23rd. That's not even counting Mother's Day. There were so many good times on those days and many others but in 2009 all those things were wiped from my memory. She spent her last birthday and Mother's Day in the hospital with medical problems but she would not want me to dwell on that last month so I will look at the better times we enjoyed with her.

My mother, Tina De, was born May 13,1936 in Erath County, Texas. Her parents were James Arthur  and Emma Harrison. He was a veteran of World War I and a farmer. They grew peanuts in the sandy fields around their home. My mother and her sisters all worked in the fields hoeing the weeds and picking the peanuts. The sand would get so hot it would leave blisters on their feet but somehow she never lost her love of working in the yard, in fact later when us kids were all grown she would get mad if we mowed her lawn for her.

She went to school in Comyn until they closed the schools down and then she went to Dublin High but her parents transferred her to DeLeon High School after a disagreement with a grade in a class. She skipped second grade and went on to be Salutatorian of her class. She became an accountant at a bank in Comanche and lived with her older sister Oleta and her husband Wayne during this time. After she met my dad and they were married they moved to just outside Ft. Worth in Handley while my father completed barbers school. 

Once he graduated he got a job at a barbershop in Irving and she went to work for Sears and Roebuck in the accounting department. She would work there until my brother was born when she retired became a stay at home mother. Living on only a barber's wages in those days couldn't have been very easy. I  can't ever remember a time when we needed much more that what we had. My parents each taught Sunday School at Plymouth Park Baptist Church and were founding members of that church. My parents also had a deep love for music and shared that with us all the time and we would even dance around the house from time to time. 

My mom taught me and my brother how to play baseball and football since our dad worked daylight to dark 6 days a week. She took care of our injuries and helped us with our homework. She typed our essays and was great at math. She was a huge sports fan, mostly Irving Tigers, Texas Longhorns and Dallas Cowboys. She would get so worked up watching a game that she would get sick if her team lost. We made sure to give her a wide berth at home on the couch when one of these games was on. She was also a big baseball fan. She got this from her father who would listen to Yankee's and Dodger's games on their radio. She passed all her love for sports to me. She gave everything she had into raising us kids and would do anything in the world to help us out if we needed it and did from time to time.

When my sister was born in 1966 we moved down the street into a bigger house and that was the only time they moved in my first 40 years. When my sister started school she went back to work doing accounting for X-ray companies. She would work mostly in that field until she retired from Davenport Dallas X-ray Company when my dad got sick with cancer. Then they moved to their hometown of DeLeon where they would each spend the rest of their lives. 

My father passed away March 18th in 2003 and she would spend the next 6 years alone in the house that my dad had grown up in DeLeon. We visited her every other weekend and she would always be waiting for us with a pot of coffee and her big smile when we walked in. We would sit on the porch talking about what had been going on in her life but what she really wanted to talk about was her grand kids. Each Saturday morning you could count on her waking up and making a great breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, sliced tomatoes, cantaloupes and biscuits and gravy. Her gravy was it's own food group. I am so blessed that she taught my wife LeAnn how to make her gravy so I can still enjoy it.

There was so much I was looking forward to doing for her but she got sick and in a matter of weeks she was gone. It was shocking to me that it had happened the way it did. Her mom's side of the family all lived long lives in to their 90's and we all  took it for granted that she would too but she had been having small strokes and no one knew about them. When her gall bladder gave her problems she went to the hospital and they found that she had blockage in her arteries in and around her brain. The worst of the blocked arteries was her carotids in her neck. 

They told her that they couldn't do surgery on her gall bladder because of the chance for an aneurysm. They said that her chance to survive a cleaning of the carotid to unblock the flow of blood was slim but she chose to have it done and we all prayed for the best. She survived the surgery and was in great spirits the next time we saw and even was eating her first real food since going into the hospital. That was the last time we were able to talk to her since she had a stroke the following day. They told us that there was slim chance she would improve and my mom had chosen to not receive life extending medical care and we all were with her when they cut the feeding tube and turned the oxygen machines off.

When I woke up the next morning she was gone. It was a blessing for her that she didn't have to live a life where everything would have to be done for her and I know that but it was still a hard thing for me. I have hardly been able to go to that house and it was always a special place for me and my wife. My brother Jeff's family and mine carry on our family tradition of the holidays and spend more time together than we have in the past and my sister Lisa and I talk more lately than we ever did since we were kids. I think that would make her happy. 

We will never be over the loss of her but we will always have the lessons she taught us and the memory of her dancing with us in the living room to "Put your Little Foot" and the way she screamed our names during football games as kids. She was a great wife and mom and I only hope to pass a portion of what she taught us on to my kids. If I can do that I will feel I am a success as a parent. I love you Mom. We all love you and miss you very much.

Her favorite was Marty Robbins

My dad played this song often for her on Mother's Day and I wouldn't feel like I finished it without including it here. Enjoy.