MeInMaine Blog

Tag: mothers day

  • Mother’s Day, What The Four Boys Learned From My Mom.

    As a little kid, mothers are the first person known for making it all better.

    For the there there, you’re okay. If you take a spill, scrape your knee. Get wounded in action on a Maine farm working. Playing outside with three older brothers, the few neighbor friends when it’s rural living in the country outside a small Maine town.

    Maine Family Farm Aerial Photo
    Mom To Four Boys, Nana To Many Other, “Weeze” To My Dad.

    Mom is the charge nurse always on duty, on call.

    When you are are flat on your back, sick as a dog. Comfort from a Mom to the rescue who guides, leads you back to health. With the homemade soup, the back rubs of witch hazel, the cool damp wash cloth applied to your forehead. Your Mom is a constant. She loves you unconditionally, is selfless.

    The Vicks Vapor Rub greasing you up, lubed on to your wheezing, rattling, raspy chest. To get you back on your feet.

    The ones with red PF Flyers. That she would use her thumb in the take a  spin. Asking where your big toe is at the Boston and Shoe Store. With sneaker or dress shoe pairs brought out by the tall bean pole bald headed guy that always wore a bow tie. Who lived on Lincoln Street, was a fixture at the store with the stool, shoe horn, sliding foot size and width metal tool and those low to the ground mirrors. He hunched down, squatted on the stool to open up, tie down the laces. To help mom get you back on the track of the circle of life.

    mary lou mooers
    Mary Lou Mooers, She Was A Benn, Second In Her Class At Hodgdon High! Raised On A Dairy Farm Like My Dad.

    Moms. What you remember most. I bet the soothing words, to help you sleep better. Telling you not to worry about something big happening tomorrow. Tucking you in after saying your prayers. Encouragement. To get you through the night a little easier. From the person who brought you into this brave new world. Squinting, all pink, pretty small and very helpless. Mom, the lady who also knits mittens, hats, Christmas stockings for you and your brothers. Gets you to hair cuts, the dentist, school activities as you grow big and strong.

    Reminding you before you speed out of the yard on a bike to be careful, look both ways.

    Make good decisions. Before the link up with friends. And to be sure to be back for supper hollered. As you wave and peddle or motorbike, snow sled away from the Maine farmstead.

    Like my brothers, Dad, I worked hand in hand with my Mom on a Maine farm. Picking fruit and vegetable produce to sell at a roadside stand. Counting tickets from potato harvester workers to tally up the barrel count. What they had earned spud picking each day.

    With the newspapers down on the cleared of supper dish Maine farm house kitchen table as two brothers took turns, washed, wiped.

    Lots of fine field dust, the numbered tickets placed in piles by Mom and I. After spilling out of a collection can from farm truck crews. That hoisted the barrels, rolled them to the back. To fill the rolling platform spaces. That when fully loaded the creaking truck was shooed. Whisked away to dark potato house storage bins.

    Maine Is Rural, Small Towns, Outdoors.
    One Potato, Two Potato… Well You Know The Rest.

    The golden nuggets to be upended, cascaded, to hibernate, snooze through a Maine winter. Before being woke up, graded, packaged. Shipped one potato, two potato… well you know the ditty. Loaded in trailer trucks the family owned to 10-4, breaker one nine.. got your ears on? Get to the large produce markets in MA, CT, NY.

    My Mom worked as hard as my Dad.

    Both were raised on Maine farms. Lazy was not a label that anyone would ever pin on either of the pair. She could cook, can, shake and bake. Create one of a kind blue plate specials better than any five star World class restaurant. My brothers enjoyed being welcomed to a house full of flavor smells. With a fresh batch of home made cookies, donuts, pastries cooling, waiting. As we walked up the long driveway. After tumbling down the steps in the front of the yellow school bus number thirteen drive by Cy Dunlap, then Hibby Thompson. That picked us up at 7:15, brought us home at 3:45. Sharp.

    The conversations around the family Maine farm house table meals were about everything under the sun. Sundays were spent going to church. Then afternoon turns taken rotating through the brothers and sisters homes. Of my Mom’s eleven child family that lived local. So we saw our cousins at a different, revolving take a turn family homestead weekly. To play while the grown ups caught up on each others lives. What was moving, grooving out and about in the small local Maine community.

    My Mom taught me about human nature, preached love and moderation.

    How to do tasks right or do it over until it was. Not harshly, negative and but reinforced in a positive, with a smile sort of way. My Mom was a strong woman with a deep faith in God and believed in my Dad too. In family, in community, in life. She was smart, trustworthy, had a sense of humor and very disciplined. Not wishy washy or a whiner. A roll up your sleeves, a person you could depend on. To do more than her share of what faced us on the Maine family farm.

    Hiking In Maine, Finding The Best Trail.
    When You Live In Maine, Everything You Need Is Right On Your Back, Carried With You Daily For Skills, Talent.

    Mom was well read. Taught us about tolerance, to work hard on ourselves rather than judge others. To keep our eyes on our own paper. To be responsible, take ownership when things went bad. Not just through successes. Like Dad, Mom believed in each of her kids, grandchildren, in God. Taught us all she knew to prepare us for our life. For when she was no longer here.

    She is gone from Earth now but lived into her 80’s. Her amazing flower beds at the Maine farm I bought from my brothers still grow tall with a variety of colors, types of plants.

    The love and care of her handiwork, the many lessons live on. Family is everything. She taught us death is part of our very short lives. Makes it more precious. Death is not to be feared and is the reminder that this is not your real home. Just a dress rehearsal for bigger and better things to come. Love you Mom. Thank you Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
    207.532.6573
    info@mooersrealty.com

  • Happy Mothers Day, The Special Place Mom Holds Long After She’s Gone.

    Maine Wedding Picture Of My Mom.
    My Mom From A Family Of 11, A Maine Dairy Farm.

    My mom has left the Earth but not my heart, those beating inside my three older brothers who grew up on a Maine farm.

    Got to know her so well because of all the time we spent in each other’s lives during our childhoods.

    Lessons learned working side by side. Living local.

    Stories of family members before her shared along with lots of black and white images parked in stacks and stacks of photo albums.

    Mother’s Day when your mom has passed away still celebrated, with memories warm, special, cherished.

    Recalling my mom today in a mental projector of one by one picture splashes. Seeing her tending large flower gardens and remembering her love of big fat, red breasted Robins that would hop hop hop. Looking for worms, breakfast as she hummed a song, was industrious on her knees. Pulling grass, weeding, transplanting and spacing out seedlings in the many flower beds that populated the large Maine farm lawns around several buildings.

    I see my mom cooking up a storm, wearing an apron. The kitchen radio serenading with music. Always music in our household. As she creates to die for fresh, hot trademark locally famous cinnamon buns. Baked beans, turkey dinners. Or playing the piano and the sound of church hymns flooding the home when coming in for a drink of water. Christmas songs played around the holidays and enriched because she was the source of the festive music.

    Poor mom lived, ran a household of all men.

    Dad, four boys and not much in the way of female companionship or sharing but close to her daughter in laws. The grandchildren that were girls finally so much enjoyment talking about things ladies enjoy. Like me, my brothers when coming up the long driveway after hopping off the Maine school bus. Greeted with swimming home made donuts in hot grease. And a waiting sugar bowl to rol, coat them in. The traditions passed on. Enriching the life of all the next generation of Mooers children.

    I miss sitting in the Maine farm house kitchen with the wood stove radiating, the pair of rocking chairs in use. During tea time and home made cookies. Time not just me, my brothers got to enjoy communication with our mom. But grandchildren listening to stories, given old wise sage advice. The same discussions that happened on the front glass porch while in the squeaky glider. She in the wicker rocker. Or sitting outside under a large lilac bush in lawn chairs.

    Mom was a reader.

    Loved biographies especially. Was a faithful user of Cary Library. Got her children into the habit of enjoying books, reading as we grew up. And made the trip to the granite stone book public depository with the glass second floor in the original building.

    Mom worked just as hard as Dad in the farm fields. Behind the scenes in every business endeavor Dad lead her into. She grew up on a dairy farm in Maine which meant there was not a lazy bone to be found in her body. And that tradition of being industrious, have a system, do it right was engrained, passed on to her flock of boys. But her pretty hands with painted nails, her cherished ring collection passed down from Aunt Emma, others showed us another side of my mom. When she dressed up frilly, feminine for church. She was a classic lady. With the pill box, other assortment of hats woman used to wear back in the 1960’s to the house of worship.

    Playing the organ at church, teaching Sunday school, reciting scripture that was applied, passed on to the Maine household.

    To learn from, lean on during storms in our life. But also to count our blessings, one by one. To be ever grateful. To make sure we gave thanks to God, our creator. Appreciate our lucky spot in life to feel fortunate about. To realize others suffer far more through ordeals we were for some reason are spared. And they were not. Look for the good, make yourself happy and avoid “stinkin’ thinkin’” a constant, practiced by my Mom.

    Moderation, being even keeled and steady as she goes. With a healthy diet of the right food, rest, carrying around good thoughts, spiritual “garden tending” inside and out. Practiced, applied daily. With a sense of humor, a keen interest in others and being well read. A thinker, philosopher and one heck of a partner for life to my Dad. Who she accepted, improved, enriched and understood better than he did at times. Not competing, not ridiculed but appreciated for where he shined. And adding her talents for any holes, or areas that he was not so well versed.

    Miss you mom but still like my three brothers have conversations, include her in our prayers.

    And so so grateful we had the kind of special mom we did. That was so loving, non judgmental and so darn practical, consistent, principled. Her lessons still apply and have caught myself when in a hurry to do a task, stop, smile. Say out loud “Okay mom, you’re right”. And go back and do it the right way. The way I was taught as the way it was supposed to be done. That in the long run was best for me, all concerned.

    Talked to a cousin this morning who’s mom, my Aunt is 86 and in assisting living. With a stroke keeping her from being table to talk. And saying when his two sisters came up to visit yesterday, and like they do every three weeks from down country, they have to have a pair. To have conversations she can listen to but not contribute to because of her loss of speech. And my cousin joking with her about her not repeating anything she heard today to any one okay? His mom smiling and accepting the way it is. But glad her children take the time to visit, live in the same state and reach out to stay connected.

    Maine, big state, less people, closer tight knit families.

    I’m Maine Real Estate Broker Andrew Mooers, ME REALTOR
    207.532.6573
    info@mooersrealty.com