LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN

My son wrote a loving tribute to me on my 70th birthday. It got me to thinking and remembering those child-rearing years. Like all mothers, I made some mistakes...I wasn't a perfect mother. But, I wanted to be..and did try to be. My older two were only 10 months apart and kept me hopping. I was a single mother to them for most of their childhood and we had a lot of financial difficulties. Usually, by Thursday, my cupboards were, literally, bare. WE had a standing invitation for supper at my Aunt Susie's anytime I wanted to go...and I took advantage of that most Thursdays!

I worked in an office from 8 to 5...and was usually home by 5:30 when I'd rush around getting a meal on the table for us. We ate a lot of hot dogs and vegetable soup and mac and cheese. Supper was usually over by 6...and that was my time with my kids. For two hours, I concentrated on them, playing, cuddling, talking about their day with the baby sitter or school. After they were in bed at 8, I did the dishes, ironing, or whatever needed doing,..then reading or watching TV... getting in bed myself sometime between 11 and midnight.

For a few years, my weekly take home pay was $40. Out of that, I paid $15 rent, $15 baby-sitter...and the other $10 had to cover everything else...food, clothes, laundry, gas, medical, etc. my ex was in the Air Force, so I did get an allotment for child support...$80 month...which went for car payments. Our entertainment was cheap...usually visiting family and in the summer, taking a car full of kids...mine and cousins...to drive-in movies.

When the kids were 3 and 4, I bought a house on a land contract. My boss gave me a bonus one year of $100 and I used it for a down payment. I was so proud of that house! It was a little story and a half white frame with aluminum siding, two bedrooms upstairs, living room, dining room, kitchen and bath plus a small den off the living room downstairs, a little sitting front porch and a decent size yard. my payments were $80 month and since I'd gotten a $10.00 weekly raise, I could just barely afford the payments and utilities. My uncle went to auction sales and found furniture for us. We lived there for 18 months...and I got an eviction notice, suddenly! Seems the people I was buying it from had a mortgage on it and were not making their payments so the bank foreclosed on them.

I was heart-broken! Of course, the bank offered me a chance to buy it from them, but I couldn't raise the money they required down. With no money for a deposit plus first weeks or months rent, I was scared. I didn't know what I was going to do. One night, I went into Tammy and Buddy's bedroom after they were sleeping, and climbed into bed between them, cudding each up against me. I laid there and prayed and cried as despair filled my soul. "Lord, I need your help. I'm at my wit's end, here. We have to be out of this house in two more days and I don't have any where for us to live, nor any money to rent a place for at least another month. What can I do, Lord, to provide a home for these two kids that You have given me? I'm placing our lives in Your hands, Father. I've done everything, looked everywhere, talked to everybody, that I can think of and haven't been able to find us a place to live."

The very next day, my cousin Avanelle, called me. At that time, the kids stayed with a baby-sitter across the street from her...and we had gotten into a habit of stopping by her house for a few minutes every few days when I'd pick them up. Anyway...she called and said she had talked to her landlord and he had said it would be okay with him if I moved in with her and shared the expenses. We had discussed this back when I first got the eviction notice, but because she was a single mother with three children of her own, not working, and on welfare, she was afraid of what would happen to her benefits if I lived with her. But, that day she said she had also called her social worker and got the okay from her. Since welfare had been paying her rent anyway...they would just cut their payment in half.

Talk about a load being lifted off my shoulders! All I could do was say, Thank you, Lord! He had come through in my darkest hour. And...thank you, Avanelle!

to be continued.