Support for my mom

My adult life started when I was 14 in the 8th grade. I applied for a special work permit which would allow me to work half days and go to school for half days. This was granted so I could help support my mother and our family of 10 including my dad. My dad was either drunk or in jail somewhere most of the time
( Just a quick note about my dad. I did know him and he was a shiftless drunk who could not hold down a job for more than one paycheck and would leave us for long periods of time with no financial support period. )
I worked all through high school and then got a job on a ranch helping with farming duties and the crops, I still carried the responsibility of my family and sent money to my mother.
I joined the army when I was 20, and enlisted in the airborne for three years. I just felt like I needed to get away from all the responsibility of supporting my mother and siblings. I continued to send half of my pay to her all through my tour of duty. When I was discharged I came back to my home town and went to work in the trades field.  I broke off all relations with my family because I was so angry at the fact that I had been put in a situation of being the provider of seven brothers and sisters plus my mother. Family services and county welfare stepped in and helped after that and it continued until all the kids were grown.
 I can remember only seeing my mother 6 times or so in the last 41 years. I finally realized through therapy that I needed to make amends and try to understand why I was put in that situation.
The last 10 years of her life I did call her once a year to see how she was doing and ask a few questions about my childhood. She had moved to Texas to be close to her daughters and had a small apartment in a state-assisted community.
 My MOM IN HER LATE 80’S WAS IN HER FINAL DAYS
I made the long trip to Texas to be with her for the short time she had left. All of us kids were there to say our goodbyes. As we were going through her things she said she loved taking drives in the country and going on walks. She loved to walk, so my sister and I started out with her when her legs went limp. We each held her side to hold her up and I suggested to her think of the ARMY and marching, holding her up we started walking. I was amazed to see her legs moving as I sang. HUP two, three four, HUP two three four. I really believed it was from the power of suggestion that she was able to move her legs. We learned later she was having a mini-stroke at that time. Two days later she passed away and  I felt sorrow and love for her that I had kept buried for a way too long.

Flashbacks

Often during a days activities I come across something that will trigger thoughts of a thing that happened in the past. Today I was taking a walk and was thinking about being thankful for life and how I have been saved from so many accidents that could have been a lot worse then they were.

It has been really icy and extremely cold and I was having thoughts of falling and breaking something , being 76 I don't heal as fast as I used to. It caused me to remember when I was 16 and working in the hay  field stacking hay in big hay stacks. I was on top of the stack  tromping around and compacting the hay that had just been set on top of the stack. Somehow I got too close to the edge and slipped off falling about 15 feet onto the forks of the tractor lift. Luckily the forks were horizontal and when I landed It knocked the breath out of me and fractured the femur bone in my leg. I didn't think I had broken anything but I knew it hurt really bad and that I could still walk on it. I just wrapped my leg up real good with some duct tape the farmer had  and finished out the day. Since I could walk I never went to the doctor I just let it heal naturally. As I thought about that incident I realized how it could of been a lot worse and then another flashback came to mind.

Just a couple of years earlier after a church service one of the elderly ladies invited me over for lunch. I was a shy teenager from a poor family with no fatherly figure to guide me. She had a compassionate heart and felt the need to help any way she could. After lunch we had a heart to heart talk and she asked if she could pray for my future life. I will never forget how she put her arms around me and asked GOD to place angles around me for the rest of my life.
I have flashbacks like this all the time and I instantly thank God that he heard her prayer and has assigned angles around me for all these years as my protector.
How much does God's saints mean to you?