I Rise From the Gates and Bless Her.

It is now a gray day, a perfect day to stay cozy inside and make some warm tea. I am reading Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart. I feel like I am reading letters from my mom. My mom was amazing, the most amazing woman I ever knew, and the woman who wrote this book brings my mom to mind in so many ways. Both women had less than easy lives. One was a widowed homesteader in Wyoming raising three children plus a herd of cattle, tending to her crops and sweeping her floor made of dirt; the other was a married school teacher with just one child of her own, but 30 children whose education she felt responsible for. My mom was a hard worker all her life. Being the only girl in a family of 5 with a single mother, she did the lion's share of housework while her own mother was working. Maybe it was because of that, or maybe it was because of her great compassion for the hardships of others, my mom wouldn't stand for any complaining. She knew how tough life could be, so she enjoyed to the fullest every moment that held no care. She lived Carpe Diem. She also taught me to live that way, and to have a realistic perspective of life. Even on scary days when I felt like I was literally going insane because of the difficulty I had in remembering things, she reminded me that still I was blessed to be able to be in my warm home and not in a cold institution. My mom wasn't one to walk around with her head in the clouds; she knew life could be very difficult at times, and even trying, but she also knew that joy could be found somewhere, somehow, in every station. She wouldn't complain about a cold house, but would welcome that cold house as a good opportunity to stay home and make some warm tea. I am truly thankful to be like my mom. She was one of God's greatest gifts to me.