Mom's life work was service to other people

Every June when the peonies were in full bloom, my mother would cut a bouquet of flowers, load up me and my middle brother in the family car and drive a mile down the road to visit my dad’s elderly bedridden Aunt Sigrid and wish her a happy birthday. I suppose I was about 5 or 6 when this became part of our summer routine.

Mom would insist that I and my brother remain in the parlor where Sigrid’s bed was positioned in a corner. We whiled away the time in enormous thinly cushioned armchairs, dutifully answering any questions that came our way. The room often was hot and stuffy, with a medicinal smell.

We easily could have passed the time in the front yard of the old farmhouse, playing tag or rolling around in the grass, but that was never an option.

Years later, after Sigrid and my father’s uncle, Hilmer, had both passed away, Dad bought their farm and rented out the house to another elderly shirt-tail relative named Selvin. I remember Mom taking the time to check in on Selvin, too, dragging us with, even though we were in junior high by then. We were more capable of making conversation by then, but it still wasn’t our favorite way to spend a summer afternoon.

This visitation to elderly relatives continued through the years. Another time the entire family drove a couple of hours to spend a Sunday afternoon with another of Dad’s uncles, Emil, who was a real recluse after his wife died. He lived in not much more than a tarpaper shack on the edge of a small town.

I remember Emil taking a dusty can off a cluttered shelf and offering us stale, store-bought cookies that we most certainly didn’t want to eat because the place was filthy. We nibbled on the sweets and quietly begged our parents for permission to go outside and play.

These childhood memories certainly aren’t among my fondest recollections, but they epitomized what my mother’s life was all about — service to others. She was always going the distance to be a caregiver and volunteered hundreds of hours as a 4-H leader, Sunday School teacher and as treasurer of our township, a post she held for 48 years.

Serving her family was first and foremost, then the church, then her community.

We didn’t realize it at the time, but Mom was leading by example and setting the stage for the next generation to follow in her footsteps.

My middle brother, who got schlepped along to Mom’s visiting sessions (my youngest brother wasn’t born yet and my oldest brother normally was helping with the fieldwork), now lives in the farmhouse where Sigrid spent all those years as an invalid. He’s the primary caregiver for my mother, who doesn’t remember anymore how gifted she was in serving others.

And so the caregiving, the serving, has come full circle.

On this Mother’s Day, as I consider all the things my mother has given me, it is her servant’s heart, born of her Christian faith, that I treasure the most.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.