Dear Mom,
Just in case I’ve never said thank you — well, thank you.
Thanks for dragging us to church every Sunday, whether we wanted to go or not. This was our first lesson that the world did not, nor ever will, revolve around us.
I know you and dad have worked together as a team for more than 60 years to tackle the task of parenting, but I also know you bore the load for making hundreds of appointments for all seven of us kids.
I can’t imagine how many hours you spent making optometry appointments so we would have glasses or contacts just so we could see that blackboard in school. Then there were the dental appointments. I figure you must have made approximately 224 appointments when we were between the ages of 5 to 21 — that’s a whole lot of gleaming white teeth.
And thank you again for sewing Leta, Debbie and my dresses to wear when we sang with Dad’s band and were known as the “Hommel Sisters.” I always wondered if you wanted to escape the babies at homes when we went to play a gig, or if you sighed in relief when the three eldest and Kevin (on drums) went to entertain the masses with Dad.
Oh, and I can’t forget the knee pads for volleyball, the team-shirt money for kickball and poster boards for all those winning science fair projects. If I remember correctly, one year Leta was doing genetic experiments with Drosophila melanogasters, I was doing an embryology study with chicken eggs and Kevin created a working volcano.
I am stupefied how you continued to make dinner for a family of nine, while the kitchen counter was filled with Leta’s test-tube fruit flies, my half-hatched chicken eggs under a heat lamp and Kevin’s volcano that was larger than Mauna Kea.
You probably thought we weren’t paying much attention, but we watched your every move. Especially when we were junior high-age nearing high school and you were a Vanda Cosmetic beauty counselor.
I am sorry that Leta, Debbie and Jerri sneaked into your off-white Vanda Cosmetic case full of samples to “test” those tiny lip-sticks. Or maybe that was just me — who can remember after all these years?
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for all the little things. But especially for modeling that love is an action.
Happy Mother’s Day.
