My Beloved Mum

Shalom:
In keeping with yesterday's post, I decided to stick to the not so famous Black Americans, but who have made our nation, our world a better place to live.
And today, I am writing about my beloved mother, Margaret Jordan.
Today is my mother's 78th birthday.
Mother was the youngest of seven children born to Joe and Callie Mixon Prude, born during the Great Depression.
 Known as the "baby of the family" (a nickname she hated) Mother was very close to her mother, my grandmother Callie.
Grandfather and Grandmother parted ways in the 1950s. Grandfather Joe stayed in Alabama and started another family. Grandmother moved the family up north to New York, where she would finish her schooling and years later, my sister and I would be born.
Mother graduated from high school and six-teen and then went to Business School. Mommy once told me she had thought about becoming a lawyer, but after searching the field, found it boring.
But mommy did enjoy being a  Legal Secretary.
My mother was and still is, amazing.
Before her stroke, mommy had the most beautiful penmanship, her shorthand was an art form all its own. When she typed, I swear she would type so fast (with no  mistakes) her fingers never seem to even touch the keys.
In my mind, when the words of Proverbs 31 10-31 were written, the author had me my mother in mind. She sometimes worked two jobs to raise two daughters and care for an ailing mother. When it would have been far easier to just sit back and collect welfare, my mother fought and won the respect of employers and fellow employees alike.
My mother never allowed my sister Eileen and I to make excuses as to why "we can't."
"I can't because they won't let me....."
"Who is 'they?'" Mother would ask. "And are you going to believe the words of 'they' over your mother?"
"I can't because I am a girl'....'I can't because I'm black...."
My mother never brought that nonsense and didn't allow us to.
Mommy believed in me when I didn't. And all those times I thought her mean or harsh, I now realised that was her way of demanding my very best.
In 1974, after he ha won the election, Michael Dukakis asked mommy to join his staff. Such was the respect Mr. Dukakis's for mommy. Mr. Dukakis, a Democratic, asked my mother, a Republican, to come and serve during his term as Governor, acting as Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor. 
After Mr. Dukakis lost the election in 1978, mommy was offered a job working for CBN here in Virginia Beach, Virginia, which she now calls home.
My mother isn't perfect, but she is perfect to my sister and I. She raised us to be strong, proud women; proud of who we are, proud of where we come from, of our people, of our nation.
Despite three major strokes that could have taken her from us some almost 12 years ago, Mommy is still going strong. Though her left side was weaken, she still does her cross-word puzzles; in ink. She still does her jig-saw puzzles. And she has had the joy of welcoming two sons, five grandchildren, seeing two granddaughters and a grandson get marry, five great-grandchildren and now a granddog, Montague.
I am so blessed to have my mother; my older sister in faith as well as my bestfriend.
All good I have ever done, I give all glory and praise to G-d and my mother.
The mistakes are my alone.