“My Greatest Accomplishment”—I Get it Now, Mom

My mom’s 40th class reunion was coming up, and in preparation for that, she had to tell them her greatest accomplishment so they could put it in the program next to her name.

“It’s you,” she told me. “I’m going to put that my daughter is my greatest accomplishment.” Then, with matter-of-fact truthfulness, “I don’t have anything else to put anyway, but even if I did, I would put you, because you’ll always be my greatest accomplishment.”

We were talking on the phone when we had this conversation—her in a recliner in the living room of her trailer, with a book in her lap and a cat on the nearby couch; me in my tiny kitchen, tethered to the wall by a stretched-out phone cord, stirring a pot on the stove and keeping one eye on my toddler and preschooler.

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard her say this, but I’d never really understood it. What did she mean, I was her “greatest accomplishment”?

In my childhood, I thought she meant that she was pleased that I got good grades. When I was a teen, I thought she was proud of me for going to college. As a young adult, I thought she was proud that I had a “real” job, with benefits and a desk and a corporate wardrobe—things she had only ever dreamed of. When I was a young mother, I thought she was happy that I gave her four grandchildren to dote on, buy gifts for, and tell stories to. And later, when she got quite sick, I thought she was grateful that I was able to manage her finances and her medications and her nursing requirements—things that she desperately needed and could no longer do for herself.

An “accomplishment” is the achievement of something notable, and in the eyes of the world (and she was the first to admit this), my mom had not accomplished much overall. So for most of my life, I assumed that my being her “greatest accomplishment” meant that she was proud of what I myself had accomplished, or what benefit I was to her … but now that I’m older, I don’t think that’s what she meant at all.

I think what she meant by her “greatest accomplishment” had much more to do with her deep, abiding love for me than with anyone’s achievement—hers or mine. She didn’t love me for what I had done—academically, occupationally, or even procreationally. She didn’t love me for my appearance, or my talents, or my children. She didn’t love me for our mutual love of books and cats, our shared laughter, or for my frequent phone calls to check in on her. Oh, she was proud of how I had turned out, and for some of the things that I did, but that’s not why she loved me.

She loved me because I was hers. It was because of that, not for (or despite) who I was, or our history together, or anything I’d done. (It’s very much like God’s love for us, isn’t it? God the Father loves us because of who he is, and because we are his—regardless of who we are, our history with him, or anything we’ve done.) My mom understood this about the parent-child relationship long before I did.

Even though I had gotten good grades in school, in many ways I wasn’t an easy child (I know this from my own too-vivid memories—yikes), but she loved me anyway. Come to think of it, I also was not an easy teen or young adult. And even though we clashed and fought and butted heads, she loved me through all of it. And when, many years later, she got sick and had few friends and no other family besides me by her side, both of us were privileged to fully understand and live out the true meaning of Paul’s words, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (I Corinthians 13:7-8a).

I married into a loving, boisterous family, and our get-togethers are large and noisy. As my other mother (my husband’s mom) has gotten older, I asked her once how she was doing with all the conversational chaos swirling around her at family events. She told me that it was one of her favorite things to sit in a room full of her children (and often grandchildren and great-grandchildren) and just listen to their voices. It brings her such joy. And sometimes, one of my nieces—the one who is quick to verbalize sweet sentiments that most of us are too busy and distracted to notice—will suddenly announce to the whole room, “Grandma, look around you! If it weren’t for you, none of us would be here! We love you so much!”

These days at home, with only one of our four children still living here, I’m adjusting to an almost-empty nest. I’m seeing ahead of me so many changes—not only changes because fewer people live here, but the kinds of age-related changes that will come upon each of us, eventually.

And oh dear Lord, I am so glad that I had children—so grateful that you entrusted me with these four precious souls who are forever “mine.” Yes, raising them was hard. To varying degrees, they gobbled up my time, my energy, my money, my sleep, my space, my patience, and sometimes my sanity, but they are still and always will be my greatest accomplishments. My greatest blessings. My comfort and joy in the old age that will overtake me one day, no matter what I do now to push it a little farther down the road. So like Solomon, I say with heartfelt gratitude, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward” (Psalm 127:3).

My mom passed away in 2009, and there are a few things I wish I could go back and say to her.  One of those things is that now I understand why she thought of me as her greatest accomplishment. Finally, Mom, I get it.

Photo: My own four children, back when they were 1, 5, 8, and 11 years old (in a frame that my mom gave to me), and my mom and me on Christmas in the mid-1970s (which you already knew, from the pants).