A Mother’s Day tribute

BY JOAN G. RHODEN

She stands just shy of 4 feet 11 inches, slight of build, but strong of heart. Her name is Elizabeth Davis Gilbert and she is my mother. She is the first Pollyanna I ever knew. I have never met anyone else quite like her. She sings without knowing she’s singing (and she knows all the words). She quotes scripture as if it were in sync with her respiratory system. No matter what topic is on the agenda, she will have a poem, song, story or Bible verse to enhance the conversation.

When I was a child in the 1950s, she taught a Bible class for the children in a black neighborhood not far from our home. It was held in a little mom-and-pop convenience store. My two sisters and I watched intently as Mother placed flannel-backed pictures on a bulletin board and kept the children spellbound with her tender stories about God’s love for “all the little children of the world.” We were unaware of taboos or social mores. We just enjoyed the children and the stories.

Mother taught us how to notice the beauty and majesty of nature. She exudes passion when talking about the constellations or the unique song of a bird. I think she must know the name of every tree and flower. So many of her sentences start with, “Did you know?” 

She is a stellar teacher, for even when I was not interested in the subject, her exuberance carried me along like a whirlwind. Before I could object, I realized that I had been inspired. I never knew exactly how she did it, but she had a way of making you see the unseen. Her enthusiasm, like pollen in the spring, settles on everything.

Mother loves children, animals, flowers, books and knowledge. She is the only person I know who reads the dictionary and encyclopedia like a novel. With red pencil in hand, she diligently marks all the parts she deems worthy. She reads the Bible with the same intensity. To my mother, a red-letter edition is any Bible she has read.

I love to read books after my mother. You always know what parts are special to her. She taught me that books are the window to this world and the world hereafter.

To have lived with such a woman is a blessing beyond comprehension. To be able to call her “my mom” is a marvelous gift from God. Who she is has helped to shape who I am. She has made the name “mother” an ideal. I don’t think I will ever, in this life, meet anyone else quite like her. She is my epiphany.

—Joan G. Rhoden is a wife, mother of three daughters and grandmother of three. She lives in Athens and is employed by the University of Georgia in the honors program.