My Mother’s House

(Shout out to all the 90’s youth group kids who got the title reference to “My Father’s House” praise song. You know you were doing the hand motions, too! Don’t hide it!)

For the past several weeks, my mom has been cleaning out her garage. Her goal was to be able to fit her car and her golf cart in there. If you could have seen what my mom’s garage looked like when she started this process, you would have laughed as loudly as Ginny and I did because… whoa. There was a lot of stuff in her garage. But by the time Chris and I got there to hang some things for her, she had done such a great job of cleaning the space out.

Chris and my mom are actually a lot alike. Both of them are hoarders. Both of them like to work on projects with their hands. Both of them like quirky, weird movies. Both of them know exactly when to push me and when to back off (that’s really more of a lifeskill because I will bite your head off if you push me at the wrong time…). It’s pretty funny to see them hanging out together, actually. Sometimes, they hang out without me! The garage was a perfect example. Chris and Mom worked all day long in her garage, hanging things, cleaning things, fixing things… You know what I did?

See that piece of twine in this picture?

That’s what I did. That was my only contribution. I hung a piece of twine to keep Mom’s pool noodles from falling down.

I’m super useful.

Mom, on the other hand, is actually REALLY handy. She does all kinds of projects in and around her house all on her own. See this brick niche? She made it. It’s not even brick. She painted it!

Crazy, right?

And behind her front door, see this little pretend dog house? She made it for her dogs. They go in there and there’s a little bed for them to lay in. Her boyfriend, Mark, actually cut this out and built the frame for her, but Mom painted it and decorated it and came up with it all on her own.

She’s a handy girl. My sister is like that, too, actually. Very capable women in my family, let me tell you.

So when Chris woke up on Friday morning and out of the blue announced he wanted to go up to Mom’s to help her hang some things in her garage, I knew that while we would be going to help her out, this was nothing she couldn’t do on her own. But Chris understood that just because my mom CAN do things on her own, doesn’t mean that she HAS to. And I loved him for making that distinction.

While Chris and Mom worked on her garage, I sat in a sideline chair and cheered for them. They didn’t need much cheering, though.

I also walked around my mom’s house and blatantly disregarded her posted rules…

My mom’s house is the cutest. If she were a house, she would be this house. First, because it’s full of life, just like Mom. She’s got two dogs, two cats, and two birds. Her little ecosystem is perfectly balanced and happy!

Besides her animal kingdom, Mom’s house is just cute and cozy. Again, just like her.

This is her guest bedroom. Isn’t it adorable? I tried to take sneaky pictures of her master bedroom, but it was apparently sheet washing day.

By the end of the afternoon, Mom could fit both her car and her golf cart into her garage! Mission accomplished!

(Also, that’s a Christmas tree and not a body in the bright red bag. Feels important to clarify that…)

We are coming up on the anniversary of my dad’s passing in August. That’s always a hard time of year for all of us, but especially for my mom. And while there’s nothing you can do to ease the emotions that this anniversary brings around, it does make me so proud of my mom to look at the life, friends, and relationships she has built since Dad died. It’s such a strange dichotomy to live in when you lose a loved one. To have built such a full life when you are missing such a huge part of it. But my mom has done this with such grace.

Of course, it helps to have cute son-in-laws around, too.