Mother’s Day 2011 Mental Images

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day 2011. Time for me to recall more images of my mother.
Mother as Writer: It seems very strange to write the phrase: “Mother as writer”. It was my Father who was the writer. It is I who was supposed to be the writer in our family. But this Mother’s Day I recall Mother as the writer: writer of letters. Mother never went beyond the 6th grade at that small Zion Lutheran School in Walburg Texas. Yet she learned to write as evidenced by the many letters she wrote me. They were always in a very clear handwriting. Even more impressive: I do not recall her ever making either a spelling or grammar mistake. They were simple, direct, descriptive, of few words but strong emotion. They not only brought news of the family but also messages of concern, affirmation and hope.. I was a missionary in Hong Kong at a time when church ruled allowed us to return home only after 5 years of uninterrupted service abroad. It was Mother who kept those images of home, of faith, or affirmation or connectiveness alive for me. She did it through her great skill a writer.

My father was called Teacher Kieschnick all his life. His three sons all went into the “teaching ministry”. Yet, one of my strong images of Mother is that of Mother as Teacher. I am not now thinking of her as a teacher of her own children but as teacher of other children-in the church Sunday School. She had plenty of reason not to be a Sunday School teacher. She had her own 9 children to care for. She herself never attended a single day of Sunday School in her life because as she grew up her congregation had no such institution. Yet, today, I recall her, in her sixties - with her classroom Sunday School pamphlets, materials for a flannel graph presentation and star- filled attendance charts on her way to teach Sunday School. She always said, almost differentially, “Well I can only teach the very little ones”. The very little ones were the ones to whom my Mother brought messages of love, forgiveness, faith and hope. She was indeed a ”teacher sent from God.”
Mother as Spouse. I doubt if Mother could relate to today’s appropriate emphasis upon each person having an identity other than “spouse of”. In her lifetime that is simply the primary l way i n which she perceived herself. She was in her own eyes always “the wife of Teacher Kieschnick”. That meant that her husband was considered Minister of the Church and more. He was the congregation school principal, organist, choir director, spiritual leader, consultant on all matters of faith and Christian life - and Mother was "his wife “.

Mother would never even think that someone might seek her advice. If someone asked her opinion on matter of faith or church life, or raising children or proper etiquette, or societal affairs I am sure she would have referred the questioner to her husband. When she selected clothes for her children, when she was approving or distressed over the behavior of her kids, when she heard others make comments `on her children it seems to me that she immediately placed herself into a role Teacher’s Wife. In retrospect I regret that. She had great personal strength of character. She was an incredibly strong woman of purpose ,of pain tolerance, of insight into relationships. She did not need to “find her self esteem” in relation to her role in society - yet I do believe that that is what she did. In the process she humbly accepted: her place ”. It was a role she humbly accepted –and I wish to this day that she could have moved beyond that, to have seen herself as one with a strong self image, a vital role player in the life of others, a teacher and a leader. For truly that is who she was.

So on this Mother’s Day I recall and honor my mother; a writer, a teacher, a leader.