The World Through My Mother’s Eyes

Oh, the treasures you find! While going through boxes during my annual summer cleaning, I came across a pair of glasses that belonged to my mother. Her last pictures were taken in these glasses. I stopped to think of the incidents and situations her eyes had seen, and what stories could be told through the lens of her glasses. I often tell my friends and my mother’s friends that behind all of the laughter was a toolbox full of wisdom. You just had to listen and read between the lines because her funny sayings were nuggets of advice and insight.

My mother grew up in an era where people were superstitious and said things like: “Don’t step on a crack (in the sidewalk); it will break your mother’s back!” “What you do in the dark will come to the light!” “You can’t let your left hand know what the right hand is doing!” “Someone is talking about you if your nose itches.” “If your right hand itches it means that you’re about to get some money.” And my favorite of these sayings is, “All that glitters isn’t gold!” As I sit and think about these sayings, I can only imagine what her eyes have seen.

I know that these eyes saw segregation at its finest. Because my great-grandmother wanted more for her, she was sent to Mather Academy in Camden, South Carolina. What I would love to have seen is my mother dressed in a basketball uniform and traveling with the team. I used to giggle when she would reminisce about those days because I could never imagine that my mother was on anybody’s basketball team. Through her eyes, she saw different parts of the United States as she lived life as an army wife. While living in Anchorage, Alaska she escaped (with me) the great earthquake and tidal wave, only to return to a very segregated south in Mississippi and Alabama. As time progressed during the turbulent sixties, she watched the funeral of John F. Kennedy, and read and watched the news of the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert F. Kennedy. She would see up close the impact of the Vietnam War as her brother, brother-in-law and others returned home changed and a fraction of who they once were. The change in the eras of music had its place in her vision. Gone were the days of political music, and the soulful sounds of Motown, boy groups, and doo-wop girls as the era of disco entered.

This was also the era of being a mother to a teenager, and supervising dating, birthday parties, and house parties. It was also a time when she would become my advocate against an educational system that became integrated, segmented, and biased. A system that made many assumptions (most of them wrong) based on race, socio-economics, outsiders, and culture. Against that backdrop, she gave me the freedom to think differently, to be independent, and to be a nonconformist. And in her short stature, she stood six feet tall and taller on my graduation day from high school and college. 

Through all of life’s changes, she knew who she was and whose she was. Her philosophy was that no matter what, the Lord knew her heart. No one can ever say that she didn’t have a servant’s heart, a compassion for young children, and a spirit of generosity towards the elderly. Without words, her eyes disciplined (stories for another day!), often taught the meaning of fearlessness and discerned the spirits of the heart of those around her.

Technology was seen through her eyes as an unnecessary pain. (She never learned to program the VCR). My mother’s eyes saw the downturn of the economy, a crashing housing market, and the Inauguration of the first African American President and first female vice president. When she looked you in the eye, you saw life, love, hope, laughter, godliness, and beauty. She carried that light constantly, so when I look through her glasses, I see greatness. Corinthians 13:4-6 describes “…a kind of love that is patient, kind, and not easily angered”

When I think about life looking through my mother’s glass, I can’t help but think about life through the lens of Jesus. Do you ever stop to ponder what He sees?

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