An Inept but Heartfelt Tribute 12/12/2021

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

It is a frustrating thing to want to write a piece of gratitude and honor for someone and know that whatever you write will fall immensely short. Nevertheless, ineptitude has never stopped me from allowing the words to spill forth so here I begin.  The day this post publishes is the day that my mother was born several years ago.  How many years ago does not matter because she has been incredible far longer than the years I have known her and that is beyond half of her life. I can pull up all the positive attributes that the thesaurus has to offer and even column upon column of glowing suggestions will not be suitable. And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking she is my mother and I am supposed to be so biased toward her but no, really, I promise you, that isn’t it. If you have ever known her, you know how amazing she is.  It isn’t just me that shares this opinion I promise you.  So, in celebration of the anniversary of one of the greatest additions to this race we call humanity, I am going to tell you a bit about this woman. She may remind you of someone you know, love and cherish and I hope that you are all blessed enough that she does.

Let us begin with her lighter side.  She is professional at good natured ribbing. I can sense her reading this and being displeased that this is her first trait that I mention but I cannot probe her most glorious depths right away. (That was as much for her as you, dear not-my-mother reader.)  A lighthearted example comes to mind.  In the past, the American football team of which both she and I are fans used to play their arch rival right before Thanksgiving. This meant that we would see family upon celebration of the holiday but more importantly we would see family that are fans of said arch rival. When our team won my mom would lecture my father and I to not say anything about the game the entire road trip to visit family. We would all be in agreeance to heed her request. Well, no sooner than that adorable woman had gotten in the door, game commentary would spill from her lips at the nearest opposing fan she laid eyes upon. My father and I would always shoot knowing glances at each other. We knew it was coming despite her lectures that we shouldn’t do it.  We always had to chuckle. I could go more into her beautifully fluent mastery of the language of sarcasm (which she passed down to me) but I will let her read the rest of this in peace. I wish you all could get to know her fantastic sense of humor. She is my mother but also one of my very best friends. It is difficult to not enjoy being around her.

What other traits to share?  She was born in the foothills of the Appalachians in northeast Alabama. I know I have told you all how much I love the mountains, especially those of that range however my mother loves them in a way that I never can. For her, they are home. While for me they “feel” like home for her they are.  I daresay her blood is a mixture of platelets somehow magically infused with mountain stone that flows along pushed by some mystical breath of mountain air. And because those mountains are a part of her it follows that so is everything that is a part of them.  The Celtic peoples of Ireland and Scotland that largely settled the Appalachians are within her too.  And she loves those places though she’s never been. I guess the influence is familiar enough to have tugged upon her heart.  Again, I feel this pull as well but I cannot compare anything I experience to hers.  She and I used to speak in Irish brogues when we would shop and people would ask us if we were from Ireland. Now yes, these people were in Alabama and hence likely didn’t grasp how inauthentic our accents were but still, we enjoyed it all the same.  It was just something that we did, we didn’t try to learn it. It strangely rolled off our tongues.

And while we may be cut from the same (likely tartan) cloth, there are ways in which I shall never be able to live up to her. I am going to say this, and it is going to sound trite but please know I mean it with every fiber of my being; my mother knows God. I do not mean she is some casual scripture reader that says her prayers. No. My mother is friends with God.  They have a close enough relationship that she talks to Him and Him to her. I strive to work at this every day but the relationship that they share is the stuff of which miracles are made.  If my mother prays for you, and knowing her she likely does because you’re reading this, her prayers on your behalf are being heard by Him.  Do with that what you will, perhaps you choose to ignore those previous sentences altogether and indeed that is your prerogative. However, it is complete and utter truth. I have seen too much to believe anything otherwise. My mother’s faith is the type that you read about in books on martyrs of old.  I pray I can be a fraction as dedicated and faithful.  I don’t know how I can express the magnitude of my mother’s faith but I know, beyond any shadow of doubt, that she and Heaven are separated by mere threads of mortality and even that is negligible.

I could say so much.  She overwhelmed me with love and adoration as a child. I was terribly spoiled and this I know.  Yet she was structured and organized to teach me the way in which I should go.  She is honest and wholesome.  She loves with a ferocity the likes of which I have never seen. They refer to mothers as “Mama Bears”. No, she is a Mama creature that is whatever happens if you mix a lion, bear, and wolf then arm them all.  She is so soft and tenderhearted, the thought of ANY suffering child will move her to tears, (and she does not cry easily) but that same soft heart is razor-edged steel in defense of the helpless and weak. She hates conflict like myself but will fight to the death to defend a righteous cause with a smile on her face.  Now that I think of it, she is very much like the mountains she loves.  She is beautiful but can be fierce. There is a complexity to her like those hills, that can span from a welcoming embrace to the bitter and harsh truth if need be.  And like those mountains, with her is a beautiful place to be, surrounded by good and wholesome things all the while ever, ever reaching up to the heavens to touch the face of God.