What is a mother? She cried and pushed you into this world, with Jesus Christ providing the light down the tunnel of life. She fed you and made sure you were warm with clothing and love. She set boundaries for you as you tested her time and again, but she hugged you throughout it all. By her role modeling, you became a strong Christian, and you realized that you “were because of many people,” the ubuntu.

Before my mother passed when I was twelve years old, she took me aside and tried to paint a picture of a beautiful future for my talents, my intelligence, and my future husband. She taught me to be truthful, kind, generous, courageous, and to have integrity. She told me to help my father after she passed and to always remember that I was a child of God. She would not see me graduate from high school or college or see me walk down the aisle, but she would be there in spirit in my heart. As my dear doctor’s wife/surrogate mom told me, my mother would be alive as long as I was alive because I was so much like her. To this day, I see her in me when I look at her wedding day picture hanging in my rec room. More than anything, I know she lives in me as I have taught so many children in my fifty-two years of teaching. She always said, “Love comes first, then education.”

So what is a mother? She is everything I’ve ever wanted to be. I have become the Christian woman that I am because she loved and believed in me. Even though I lost the only baby I would every carry, how to be a mother became the foundation of my teaching skills. Most importantly, because Jesus Christ loved her, she loved me. I have loved all people, regardless of race, creed, color, religion, ethnicity, gender, or wealth. That is the greatest gift my mother taught me: to love as Jesus Christ has loved us.

Anna Hartt