03/29/2024
Thoughts While Shaving
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I enjoy seeing friends from long ago … problem is, they usually ask me if I am Robert Hester, and my answer is, one of several in these parts … problem is, I have no idea who I am talking too. … Do enjoy renewing old acquaintances … so don’t hesitate if our paths cross…

Had a couple of readers respond recently … thanks for the comments…

Today is a very special day for me and my siblings. Today, June 4th is/was my moms’ birthday, a saintly woman if ever there was one. Her six children ‘pushed her patience to the limits’, sometimes … well maybe just the oldest one. … She would have been 104 if she were living today … I think … not good on arithmetic … but I have 5 siblings to correct me if I am wrong…

My mom was a very good lady … grew up in tough times, but bet she would say her early years as a mom were good. … She never lived more than a few miles from Zion Hill Baptist Church, north of Bladenboro … we moved often, but in the early 50s our family settled down on Marshall Cain Road … across the road from her mom (Grandma Cain) … where she lived til her death in 2004…

‘Miss Myrtle’, as she was known, was a proud mom, proud of her 6 youngsters. … In her later years, she struggled, living alone, not of her own doing … attended church if the doors were open … thought the sun rose and set near Zion Hill Baptist Church…

She could prepare a delicious meal, complete with a couple of pans of home-made biscuits three times a day, can veggies in the summertime, make a shirt from a feed bag that any of her youngsters was proud to wear to school, church or anywhere else…

As she grew older, living alone, most of her children had moved away, one remained in Bladenboro and was most attentive to her needs, occasionally I would load up my lawn mower and head home to mow her grass … but I was to careless … apparently got too close to her flowers and being the nice lady she was she made it clear the son nearby could do the job better … she never told me, but others did…

Mom could stretch a dollar better than any person I ever knew … and she had lots of experience. If she had been a wealthy lady, TV ministers would have fared really well, she supported her church as well, tithing and singing in the choir, tuning you for a bigger choir.

When she passed away, she had more Campbell Soup than I had seen since stocking shelves at Hinson’s Super Market. … Having lived through a depression, she knew how to care for her self…

She loved for her children to attend church with her, especially on special days, a good example was Mother’s Day…

I repeat, she was a good person, a good mom and I miss her. … I must have worried ‘the crap’ out of her … but she still loved me…

Mother … someone who will love you unconditionally, ’til her last breath.

All mothers are working mothers.

Life doesn’t come with a manual, it comes with a mother.

robert g hester
rgh4612@gmail.com
910-87602322

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