Mom died way too young. She was only 46 when a brain tumor choked the life out of her.She started having terrible headaches around the time of Thanksgiving in 1981. The doctors found her tumor right after Christmas. She died on March 5, 1982.
My youngest sister is faithful about visiting her grave every Mother’s Day, and she always brings flowers. I am more hit or miss. Sometimes visiting that grave just makes me too sad. I prefer to think about happier memories.
Nancy Jo Hopkins was a small town girl, born in Connersville, Indiana, smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression. Her family nicknamed her "Pigtails" thanks to her favorite hairstyle. On Sundays she would walk downtown with her brother to go to the movies. She loved Roy Rogers. I'm told she was an excellent dancer, and taught ballet lessons when she was a teenager. I can remember, when I was little, watching mom practice her pirouettes in the living room.
She moved to Indianapolis after graduating from Connersville High School. She found a job as a clerk with the Fort Benjamin Harrison Army Finance Center.
In the autumn of 1953, Mom’s older sister, Alice, had a date with a young man named Howard Smith. Alice and Howard didn't hit it off, but Howard took a serious interest in Alice’s baby sister Nancy. They went on a whirlwind courtship that lasted a whopping three months before they decided to get married in January of 1954.
I came along in late November of 1954, becoming the oldest of six children to be born in a twelve-year span to this fertile young woman. Mom always told us that the best she ever felt was when she was pregnant. She never complained of morning sickness, and when I was older, and she was carrying my younger brothers, I never noticed her condition slowing her down much. She was born to breed.
There were a lot of advantages we lacked growing up, but I am eternally grateful for one thing we absolutely did have – a kind mother who loved us. I can still remember lying on the couch, watching TV, with my head in mom’s lap. She would stroke my fuzzy crew cut with one hand while munching popcorn with the other.
Mom was a soft touch. If you every needed a hug, she had one. If you were upset, she was there to listen. She loved her kids, and she would bend over backwards for any of us.
If she had a fault, it was that she was too easy on us. Looking back, I realize now that we took advantage of her easy nature. We should have helped her more around the house. She did all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, and laundry for a family of eight. She was a busy woman.
I do think my sisters helped with the housework when they got older, but all I can ever remember us boys doing was messing up the place.
To my shame, there were times as a child when I complained about her cooking, or something she forgot to get for me at the store, or some other childish desire I had that she had not fulfilled to my satisfaction. In my youthful ignorance, I did not fully appreciate the gift God had given me – a kind mother who loved me.
One of the many bad things about losing a mother so young is that you haven’t had time to grow up enough to truly appreciate her. If she had lived longer, reality would have had more time to catch up with us children, and we could have expressed to her how grateful we were for her love and nurturing.
Mom has grandchildren now who have only a vague fuzzy remembrance of a petite woman with dark hair. They have been denied the pleasure of growing to know a woman who would have been an outstanding grandmother, and who no doubt would have spoiled them with kindness just as she did her own children.
My greatest consolation is that I know mom became a Christian shortly before she died. Mom was a good woman, and had believed in God all of her life, but she had never been born again. She had never made the decision to repent and surrender her life to God. But in the spring of 1981, before she became ill, we sat down one day at her kitchen table and she asked me to lead her in a prayer of repentance. At the age of 45, mom finally knelt before the King of creation, and asked Jesus to become her Lord and Savior.
So I have a fantastic reunion to look forward to. There are a lot of people I want to visit when I step into eternity, but the first person I’ll be looking for is mom, and I have no doubt she’ll be waiting for me. I may even just lay my head in her lap for old times’ sake.
And then I will be sure to thank the Lord, face to face, for giving my siblings and me the greatest gift God can give someone on this earth – a kind mother who loved us.
