MY MOTHER, THE STEAM ROLLER (2025-4)

There's an image in my mind that bubbles up regularly. It's kind of a "mind reel", like a mini-movie that plays in my head. It's become a reel because the human attention span seems to be getting shorter and shorter. We are down to little snippets.

Here it is:

It’s Sunday morning. I can smell the distinctly musty-humid scent that comes when we open the glass double-doors to the lobby of the Pleasant Hills Chapel of our little Branch-turned-to-Ward in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, PA. Our mother walks in, followed by her three young daughters: Ann Marie, Cori and Libby. I’m the middle one. We waddle behind her like little ducklings, our feet flipping swiftly under us because we are late. (It’s a generational flaw.) The organ is playing the opening song. Or maybe even the Sacrament Hymn. Brother Johnson, who seemed to me to be 100 years old but was likely in actuality ten years younger than I am now, sits in the back and comments as we pass:

 “Here comes the steam roller.”

I feel heat rising inside me as we walk up to our regular pew, glowing red as it reaches my head.

I feel sad that calling our mother a steam roller was something in Brother Johnson’s personal history and a defining portion of my memory of him.  What he did not pause long enough to realize, in his misuse of an ability to make comment, was that the woman who had not only forced herself out of bed, made herself presentable, and provided presentable dress for her daughters… had fed and provided shelter for those daughters… had purchased not only the car but the gas to get to church and driven them all there herself, had done it all on her own, without the aid of the father of those girls… this woman essentially had to become a steam roller to survive. The four of us man-less females put our shoulders back and walked up the aisle of our little chapel worthy of everything the Lord had to offer. Mom knew that. She taught us that. But some others didn’t know it … or hadn’t been taught.

Our blessed faithful mother, a rebel soul from the start, never left us. She had her flaws. We all do. But unlike the man who chose to drive away from our home and never return, she never left us. Even when her spirit took its flight, and she was gone from sight, she never completely left us. 

She remains… not only in her daughters, and their daughters, their daughters and the daughters to come, but also in her sons, and their sons. She bled onto us, and we are bathed in her, similar to the way we are bathed in the blood of our Savior. They both liberated us in their own way. I don’t mean, in any way, to lower the majesty of our Lord and Savior and his blessed atoning sacrifice. But I do mean to raise the divine feminine to the level of reverence for which I believe it was designed. It begins with respect then moves on to reverence.

Respect is a formal way of showing consideration and tolerance for others. Reverence is a feeling of profound awe and respect that comes from within. 

Respect women, who have been unduly and unrighteously oppressed for most of human history. Then when you have mastered respect, move on to reverence. It’s higher level thinking and higher level feeling. 

Gratefully, the father of my children and resident of my heart has made me feel not only loved but also revered. No wonder my mother loved him as much as I do. He reveres me, and also revered her the way she should have been revered, if for no other reason but the divine nature with which she came at birth.

Thank you, Mom.

Thank you, David.

Happy International Women’s Day

Whispering confidence into her great-grandaughter.

My safe place.

My true loves.