I have always been a Mama’s Boy. I had two experiences this past week that reminded me how blessed I have been. One experience occurred when we had a visitor who told us a story of a mother who pulled a gun on her son. My Mother never held a gun in her hand, much less holding it to the head of one of her children or grandchildren. The second experience occurred when I was talking to a guy about his boss wealth and how he accumulated his wealth. He told me that he first opened a small business He built it up and bought a second business. Then he got a loan and traded up to a third business, and soon he had four. At the time this conversation was taking place, his boss had fourteen known businesses and an unknown number of rentals.
If you ask how this relates to me being a Mama’s boy, both these experiences remind me of my mother who opened a small second-hand store, from things people gave her and built that business up to where she and my father bought a large house with an apartment and a place where my father could open his car polishing business on the property. We bought it in 1956 and I sold it in 2001 at a substantial profit, dividing the profit up with my two sisters. I have tried to teach my three sons that property is not necessarily to sell but to use to make a profit for their families. There is a story in the Bible of the talents (Matt 25:14-21). A wealthy master left on a trip and entrusted all his money to his three servants. To one he gave five talents, to another he gave two talents, and to the third servant, he gave one talent. When the master returned and was given an accounting of his money, the servant with the five talents and the servant with the two talents had invested the money and doubled it for their master. However, the servant with one talent dug a hole in the ground and buried it. The two servants who wisely invested their master's money were praised and the master entrusted each of them with even more. The other servant who had hidden the money was severely criticized and cast out by his master as wicked, lazy, and worthless. Though my mother did not buy and invest in property where she could rent it and make a profit, still she used what she had to expand the family wealth. My Mother and Father are gone after a fifty-one-year marriage, but the lessons live on. I still live by the lessons she taught us and avoid the things she said would do us no good. I know I have been blessed. She even picked out the girl I should marry, and after nearly sixty years of marriage that is still working out. There was rules Mama made that we were to follow that I did not like, but they proved to be correct. Rules like how late I could stay out, what I could drink, what I could not smoke, and why I could not sing in the Pentecostal Church choir (she had her Pentecostal rules). I have not put a gun to my son’s head or left my family after all these years. More than anything I am proud of my family and how well they have done following my mom’s examples. I believe she would be proud of me and mine. To those of you who still have your mom, make her proud. |
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