The Worth of a Daughter?

I know this is long, but I think it will be worth reading...

What is the worth of a daughter? Does it change if you have disagreements? Does it change if you are not as close to them? Does it change if she lives a different life than you would want her to? As little sweet Jayna sits in my lap as I write this post I can not imagine her worth in my eyes changing over anything. She is my world, she is my gift from heaven, she is my little baby girl. I am sure we will have are moments, and I do not know what the future holds for her or us. I know she will have her agency to choose things for herself in life, but I have and work everyday to grow the kind of love with her that will withstand the trials of this life. Some of that love I feel is just instilled in me. It is just something I posses as a woman, I feel I have that love for my children before they even come here. That is why I do not understand the following.

Lots of you are familiar with the circumstances of my mothers up-bringing. She was a poor child most of her life with two alcoholic parents that divorced early on in her child-hood. She has stories to tell of wearing her aunts bath slippers to school, because they were the only shoes she could get. Stories of having to entertain her drunk father on the front lawn in fear that he would brake the house windows again leaving them cold during the winter. Stories of thinking her middle name growing up was s**t head because she heard the phrase so often. Stories of her mother calling my father during their engagement to tell him that she was a slut and that he didn't know who he was marrying. Stories of her mother disowning her over her choices as a youth to join the church and live a better life. Now my mother has always laughed these stories off, and has told them with great humor, but they are insights into the harsh reality that was her life no matter how they are told.

I myself have probably met my Mom's mom a dozen times or so that I can remember. My memories mostly consist of my brother Craig and I sitting on her living room floor playing with old cigaret lighters. That is until my dad would order us to the car snapping us out of our child-minded daze to realize that our Mom was in a heated argument with her mother, of which my Dad was going to have none of it. So needless to say growing up I always thought I only had one grandma which was my Dad's mother. My Mom would contact her mom every couple of years or so, or if there was a death in the family or big news to share. My mom faithfully would send christmas cards to her and pictures of us kids, but we never would receive anything in return. In-fact the only thing I have ever received from her was fifty dollars for my wedding, which was a shock and quit generous considering. My mother also has one sibling, her brother Kennedy whom she has not seen since she was my age at her fathers funeral. She has asked for his information over the years wither it be for weddings or christmas cards, but her mother would never give her the information she requested. So as years past I think my Mom gave up, got over it, and moved on. There are only so many things you can do or say to someone who wants to be as bitter, mean, and lonely as her mom wanted to be. It is sad to waste a life-time, and misery loves company, but my Mom wanted more than that.

Since my Mom has little contact with her mom I have always asked her about the inevitable. "How will you know if your mom dies?" her answer has always sadly been, "I don't know, I think her neighbor will probably call me." Well this last Friday we found out. Friday night before a Halloween party my Mom received a call from a child-hood girlfriends mother asking her where her mom was. My mom had no idea what she was talking about, and the friends mom had no idea of the history between my Mom and her mother. It was embarrassing for her to relay to she is not really in-contact with her mom, and would not know where she is. The friends mom explained that Shari (my moms mom) had been in the hospital for the last two weeks and had been moved, but that no-one knew to where. My mom called me and I called the hospital that she had been at, but they no longer had record of where they had sent her. A few phone calls later my Mom found out where she was and found out that everyone in the family had known of her failing health and was told by her mom not to call her or her brother. Knowing her mom it was a last guilt trip, to see just how long it would take her rotten kids to find out that she was in the hospital. My mom sent a family friend that lives near the rest home down to see her and give them her information since she is next-of-kin. Her friend reported that her mother was unconscious and that the doctors said she had taken a turn for the worse two days earlier. My Mom then decided that she was not going to hurry out to visit her mom since it had been her wishes not to see her. My mom explained to me that she was at peace with not going, because her last conversation with her mom was a decant one, and was when she called her to tell her that Jayna had been born and that she was a great-grandma. Then a few hours later her cousin Toni called her to let her know that her mom had past away. My mom was also told that her mom left everything to Toni and gave her and her brother each a $1. That's right a dollar.

Now my Mom by no means needs the money, but I do not care who you are or what your relationship is with your mother that is a slap in the face. It was just one last way her mom could tell her she was good for nothing. So as I type this my Mom is up at her childhood house that contains all her memories of life, with her cousin and her cousins lawyer going through pictures and things. Having to ask for permission to copy childhood photos, and being told she cannot even have a cast-iron cooking pan. Whether they are good memories or bad memories they are my mothers. They are the rooms that she hid in when her parents fought. They are pans she learned how to cook with as a little girl. They are the pictures she is in with her father and mother. They are the things that only her and her brother are owed or deserved after having to endure half a life-time of sad and less than perfect memories.

I personally think my Mom should just frame the dollar with a little quote underneath it that reads "I survived having Shari Logan as my mother and all I got was this lousy dollar". But my Mom is not handling it with anger like most of us would feel justified in doing. No, she is up there right now being as sweet as can be, helping as much as she can. Why? Because that is how my mother has learned how to survive all her life. She has survived by turing bad into good and negative into positive. She has survived all that has come her way, by showing charity and love to those around her the best she knows how. The other alternative would have been to live an ugly life of bitterness, hate, and loneliness like her mother did.

So Mom I thank you. I thank you for having the buck stop at you. For knowing and wanting a better life for you and your children. For sacrificing relationships with your family to make a happier life for me and my family.

Your mother may only think you are worth giving a dollar to, but your Heavenly Father thinks you are worth giving the world and eternity to. I love you.

So I ask you, what is the worth of a daughter?