A tribute to Mawzy

I can remember an evening fall hike with my three-year-old at my side and baby on my back. After tossing more blueberries in our mouths than we had in our buckets, I soon realized that the sun was gone, and the mountain breeze grew increasingly brisk and chill.

My son’s little hands were cold, and we had yet to make our descent down the mountain trail to our car. The dilemma had me puzzled for only a moment. I removed the wool socks from my own feet and placed them over the hands of my son. I slipped my bare feet back into chilly boots and proceeded to hike down the mountain with kids in tow.

I eagerly shared my discovery with my mom—the sock to mitten brilliance I had employed on the mountain. She quietly smiled and admitted to “countless adventures” where she walked barefoot in her boots after using her socks to warm our hands. This was my mother. I just hadn’t always been able to see it.

As a teenager, I longed to have a stylish mom like some of my peers. Those moms drove their kids to school, washed their kids’ laundry, took trips to the mall, and taught their daughters how to apply eyeliner. I was the kid who packed her own lunch and caught the bus to school. And as the oldest daughter, I had many awkward and embarrassing experiences with eyeliner.

In my 16-year-old brain, my family was the weirdest, and mom was quite possibly from Mars. At the time, I resented the days spent in the garden planting and harvesting vegetables, at the piano plunking out sour notes (mom was my first piano teacher), and in the kitchen learning how to make meals from the produce and livestock we raised in our backyard.

Mom loved farm animals, especially baby piglets. I will never forget the humiliation of being picked up by my prom date at the very moment that mommy and daddy pig were making sweet, sweet love in the hayfield.

Years later, I brought my first child home from the hospital.

Mom slept on my couch those first three nights, bringing Baby Ryder in and out of my room to nurse. When our daughter was born, we lived with mom while our new house was under construction. We were amazed at how well Kinley slept through the night, and from such a young age! Later I discovered that mom had snuck up the stairs in the night and rescued baby Kinley before we even heard that first whimper. My mom quietly rocked her back to sleep or slipped her a bottle of warmed breast milk from the freezer.

Years of such splendid treatment won her grandkids’ affection and the nickname “Mawzy.” Mawzy gave us date nights out, only for us to return to a spotless house, washed and folded laundry, clean dishes, and bathed and sleeping children. When our garage needed painting, or it was time to put in the yard, she was always first to show up. I can’t count the times I begged her to stop shoveling snow from my driveway to protect her aching back. For seven years now, she has cared for my children while I worked part-time at the hospital. To this day, she just laughs at me after any attempt to compensate her.

Mom has always loved people more than things, and there is never any fuss about tiny muddy boots on her floor or sticky peanut butter fingerprints on her windows. Mawzy’s house is a home where all children feel welcomed and loved. Her grandchildren are indeed her most prized possessions.

Jeffery R. Holland said, “No love in mortality comes closer to approximating the pure love of Jesus Christ than the selfless love a devoted mother has for her child.” Such love was demonstrated by Mother Eve, our first earthly mother, and mothers Sarah, Rachel, and Rebekah. Mary embodied that love as she carried, bore, and raised the Son of God—the Savior and Redeemer of the world. It is no wonder that God gave us all mothers to accomplish the great work he has set forth for us to do.

I agree with Abraham Lincoln, who said, “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” Mom, I can never pay you back in a hundred lifetimes or a thousand eternities for all you have done for me. I will simply have to “pay it forward.” I have embraced our family’s weirdness, and I now love gardening alongside you, harvesting vegetables, teaching my children piano, and making Ryder wash his own laundry. These days my friends see your love and influence and wish for a Mawzy of their own. Not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for giving you to me. Thank you for teaching me how to love, by showing me what love looks like.

Katie McKee is a pediatric ICU nurse, a mama of three, and avid outdoorswoman. She loves to fish, four-wheel, and is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.