My parents are adorable.
No really, they are!
Like many marriages, theirs started because they “had” to get married. Because they were going to have me.
Growing up, I didn’t really think much about that detail. They were just my parents. We were just a family.
Until several years ago when I had a conversation with a relative I had not seen in years. He had experienced a lot of family challenges growing up, but had given his heart to Christ and had broken free of many of his family’s spiritual strongholds.
He too knew the basics of my parents beginnings and in the conversation he made the comment, “You know, they didn’t start out under the best of circumstances but together they made a marriage, they made a home, they made a family, and they made a life, and that spoke volumes to me.”
I had never thought of it like that before but that is EXACTLY what they did!
My parents instilled a lot of things in me, but one of those things I know the Lord wanted me to cultivate in my marriage, in my home, and in my family and my generations, was a strong sense of togetherness.
A Life Of Togetherness
At the very beginning, they moved to the Philadelphia area and lived with my father’s parents (who had moved to Philly by then) during the week while my father worked. Then every weekend we traveled three hours back to my hometown to visit with my other grandparents until my parents bought a home of their own back at that hometown.
It was an extreme fixer-upper, to say the least, which was right up my parents’ alley!
Once they bought that home, they continued to live during the week near Philly and traveled to my hometown every weekend to work on the house that was to become our home. I think they did this for a couple of years until my father was able to find suitable work back home.
My father worked a job outside of the home and my mother was a homemaker, but other than that, my parents have pretty much done everything together all of their lives.
They never got a babysitter ~ they took me everywhere they went.
Until I moved away to college, they never took a vacation without me or EVER went away overnight with friends without their spouse.
Working Alongside Each Other
The home that my parents bought had a long narrow yard that was a jungle. Every year they cleared a little further away from the house. My father wouldn’t allow my mother to use the riding mower, but she trimmed with the push mower and tended her flowers and bushes while he did the big stuff. And much as possible they mowed at the same time, or at least on the same day.
And they still do it this way to this day at their new home.
If my mother wanted a flower bed, my father would dig up the ground and loosen the soil wherever she wanted it, then the two of them (with me if I was around) would travel over the mountain to the nearest big town to choose flowers. My father was fully engaged in the whole process, helping her make decisions if necessary. Other stops were made as needed to conserve gas, of course.
Sometimes we’d stop for lunch. Many times sandwiches, snacks, and drinks would be taken along when money was tight. After I left home and as they’ve gotten older and travel alone, they’ve even been known to share a Happy Meal at McDonalds. Or a coffee from a convenience store. Or they’ll stop at Cracker Barrel and buy kids meals. Oh, and they also travel with a couple of stuffed animals strapped into the back seat. (I told you they’re adorable!)
They also loved to expand that small, old house by adding rooms onto it. If Daddy wanted to add a room, off they’d go over the mountain to the lumber store to buy supplies. Money was tight and I distinctly remember pulling nails out of old boards and pounding them to straighten them out for reuse. Very little went to waste. If nothing else, you burned the leftover scrap lumber in the woodstove that winter.
So much of all they did was always done as a team. Even drink breaks were taken together. On most project days, Daddy would wrap up the debris while Mom started dinner, which was ALWAYS eaten together sitting down. Then they might enjoy their coffee together sitting on the front porch waving as people drove by.
And other than household necessities like doing laundry, etc, if my father was working on a big project my mother NEVER started a separate big project of her own. That way she was always available at a moment’s notice if Daddy needed her. Oh, she didn’t put much thought into it, but years later when I read about the concept of NOT working on a large, separate project if my husband had one going, it was then that I realized that was EXACTLY what my mother did!
Fast forward to today. A couple summers ago my parents decided to eliminate the mulch around their home and replace it with egg rocks and pavers. They made multiple trips in 90 degree weather over the mountain in their truck to pick up supplies. Multiple trips because their truck was small and often they bought all the store had and either had to travel to a different branch of the same store, or wait for more to come in.
Of course they made other stops at Walmart or anywhere else they needed to pick up supplies. Sometimes grabbing lunch, as I mentioned above.
It took them quite a while but they finished the job! And it was done very well too.
You won’t find harder working parents than mine.
But I know what my father was thinking in the back of his mind the whole time, “If we replace all this mulch with these rocks and pavers, she won’t ever have to fool around with mulch when I’m gone.”
He’s always trying to look out for her after he’s gone as best he knows how.
I didn’t realize until I got out on my own and spent years trying to make a home with my husband (who had a very different upbringing and family worldview than mine) and raise my children, just how grounded I was and just what my parents had imparted to me. It’s deep-seated and hard to explain.
And I am so grateful that because we lived only an hour and a half away from my parents, and because we home schooled, we were able to visit my parents often and my children have a certain level of that groundedness inside of them as well.
Life Is About Family
Growing up, several times a week we visited my maternal grandparents’ farm 6 miles away. I have many fond memories of the farm. As I became a teenager, every week my father and I would mow there with two riding mowers. It was awesome!
Mom was usually inside helping her mother around the house. I can still see my mother putting the old-style curlers in my grandmother’s short, dark hair. Then Grandma would put a black and white scarf over her head. I still have that scarf. It hangs in a special spot by my kitchen door, right above my grandfather’s barn cap.
We were ALWAYS visiting the farm and I have SO many wonderful memories of being there! This is why it has been so important to me to strive for a homesteading lifestyle. A life filled with animals, gardening, food, and family. (And a riding mower.)
It’s about journeying through life TOGETHER.
Caring For Extended Family
For my parents, their lifestyle was as natural as breathing. So was the concept of caring for each other’s parents. There was absolutely no distinction made when my grandparents needed something. Both of my parents worked together as a team to care for their parents’ needs.
Some examples:
Eventually, my paternal grandparents moved from Philadelphia and made a home in town, 6 miles from my parents in the opposite direction from the farm. As the grandparents aged, their needs increased. My mother had her driver’s license since she was a teenager, but she didn’t like to drive. But eventually she HAD to do it because of the increased family needs.
She tells me there were days when I was put on the bus, then she would head to her parents’ farm to help as needed with gardening, canning, etc, and especially with my grandfather’s care after his stroke. Those difficult, emotional days would sometimes even involve transporting her mother, driving past our house to town for doctors appointments or groceries. Then she’d deliver her mother back to the farm, drive past our house again to travel back to town to assist her in-laws as needed with cleaning, cooking, appointments, etc. THEN she’d drive home to see me off the bus and make dinner and care for her own family. And she did this for a few years.
You will NEVER find a better care-giver than my mother.
As I said before, my father and I would mow at the farm every week, all summer long, and it took hours.
When Granddaddy was bedridden after his stroke and my mother had to help care for him, my father would arise VERY early every morning (in the middle of the night really) to milk the cows, then go to his job for a full day’s work, then return in the evening to milk again and clean everything up so he could go home and get a little sleep so he could be back early the next morning to do it again. This continued for a few weeks or months until the cows were sold off.
It wasn’t a long period of time, but it was still a challenge.
After my Granddaddy passed away, Grandma was afraid to stay at the farm alone so my father and my uncle (my mother’s brother) took turns staying overnight with her. My father stayed with his mother-in-law every other night for close to three months until Grandma felt comfortable staying there on her own. My father NEVER complained about having to do ANY of these things. NEVER.
It was a responsibility.
This is the kind of person I’m striving to be ~ a non-complaining, responsibility embracer.
My father indicated once that his father-in-law was a stubborn man and should perhaps have done some things differently with the farm. Maybe he voiced those opinions to my grandfather. I don’t know, but once the decisions were made, Daddy was available to help as needed, doing anything he was called upon to do to lend assistance. Never complaining or holding any grudge.
You take it in stride and just do what you have to do.
Eventually Grandma developed Emphysema and moved in with us. (Good thing we built that extra room on!) My father never complained about the inconvenience and was nothing but gracious, never making her feel like she was a burden. She was a valued member of the family.
My mother’s input:
I showed my mother this article when I was almost finished with it and she reminded me of something that was said 20+ years ago during an anniversary party my husband and I hosted for them. Someone at the party who had known them nearly all their lives commented, “Fred and Marie, you always see them together!” Mom was surprised that someone noticed!
My mother also said whenever one of them is sick and the other has to go to the pharmacy without the sick one, the pharmacists and technicians always ask with genuine concern about the missing spouse because it’s such an anomaly. They notice right away that someone is missing.
Because they’re always together.
In closing:
I want this article to stand as a testimony to my future generations. I want to impart to them a strong vision for togetherness and shared vision.
I believe this is what God wanted me to instill in my children and I think, for the most part, they captured the vision.
This is why husband and wife teams like Chip and Joanna Gaines of Fixer Upper inspire me so much. Their unity of vision is incredible and that, combined with hard work and God’s blessing, is the reason for their success.
This vision for togetherness is one of the reasons why when God called me to home educate, I embraced the vision so intensely.
This vision for togetherness is also the reason why I have strived for being in full-time family business/ministry. (Also God’s calling on our lives, I believe.)
The way I see it, if our lives are a vapor as James 4:14 tells us it is, why would I ever want to spend the bulk of my life with anyone more than the ones I love the most, including spending as much time as possible with my parents.
One day, we’ll step into eternity and the opportunity to walk with our loved ones and pour into their lives will be over. And so, I’ve always told my children:
You cannot spend enough time with the people you love the most.
