Simple Little Reminders... of Mom on Her Seventy-sixth Birthday

Barbara Kay
Ramsbottom Conklin Hall
1947-1999
May her name be blessed forever!

I was blessed to have a young mother. She and Dad married when she was sixteen, and I came along just shy of a year later when she was seventeen. She was energetic and full of life and fun. In a way, we grew up together. ~smile~ She loved it when someone thought I was her little sister! She moved to Heaven many years ago. I look forward to our reunion. I really miss her and what might have been.

Do you have a loved one who's moved to Heaven? Isn't it a wonderful comfort knowing that if we both love Jesus and have accepted Him as our savior, that we can see each other again?

I believe that Jesus is coming back soon. We'll be caught up with Him, and there will be quite a reunion. Yes. I'm looking forward to that. If you're not absolutely sure that you've given your heart and your life to Jesus, and trusted Him for salvation, please don't wait. Click here to learn more.

Until then... Simple little reminders of Mom...

~ Silent Night

~ Sweet Hour of Prayer

~ Amazing Grace

~ Away in a Manger

~ Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

~ decorating for Christmas

~ rocking chairs

~ smiling and talking to everyone

~ yard sales

~ my daughters singing

~ hot roast beef sandwiches

~ Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On

~ harmonica music

~ Bleeding Hearts

~ July 3rd

~ black walnut divinity

~ Christmas Eve

~ star sapphires

~ Blue Cross Blue Shield

~ singing in the car

~ family recipes

~ purple Bearded Iris

~ mums

~ Beach Boys music

~ lemon slushes from Sonic

~ rose bushes

~ hand laid brick sidewalks

~ lilacs

~ little honey colored pet mice

~ sewing clothes

~ beef and bean tostadas

~ mashed potatoes, "Did you salt the potatoes?"

~ Garfield the cat

~ Clark Bars

~ Milky Way

~ TOPS

~ Red Lobster

~ macrame

~ chess

~ The Lioness

~ Pepsi at the beauty shop

~ room mother

~ poster board and poster paints... She could paint anything!

~ Carol Burnett

~ Take Me Out to the Ballgame

~ macaroni and tomatoes

~ homemade pork tenderloins

~ card games

~ sewing, especially laying the fabric out on the floor to pin and cut

~ There Was an Old Geezer Had a Wooden Leg

~ Tongue Twisters

~ She sells seashells down by the seashore. How many seashells does she sell?

~ September 7th

~ Fireworks

~ barbecue chicken, corn on the cob, and sliced, homegrown tomatoes

~ I Love Lucy

~ mashed potato sandwiches

~ blue robins' eggs

~ dancing

~ homegrown tomato sandwiches with salt

~ crochet and crafts

~ homemade cinnamon candy suckers

~ handmade leaded stained glass

~ Yahoo... when it was a giant wooden board game that covered a card table. It was played with marbles. It was played sort of like Sorry! or Trouble! now.

~ Brahams' Lullaby... "Lullaby and goodnight... the angels are singing... hear them singing soft and low... off to sleepyland you go.... Close your eyes... little one... close your wee little eyes... close your eyes... little one... 'til the morning has come."

~ socks and blouses matching

~ soft serve vanilla ice cream cones dipped in chocolate and rolled in peanuts

~ singing with the radio

~ Uno

~ cinnamon rolls and sticky buns with brown sugar and pecans

~ homemade coleslaw (She thought I should like hers even though I didn't like any coleslaw!)

~ "If I doed it, I get in trouble. I doed it!"

~ "I'm Gettin' Nuttin' for Christmas!"

~ Bing Crosby Christmas music

~ Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn

~ "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake. I pray the Lord my soul to take. God bless Daddy... God bless Mommy... God bless John... God bless Grandma... God bless Grandpa...."   When I had my own children, someone taught me a line to replace the "If I should die" line. "May angels watch me through the night and wake me with the morning light."

~ My breast cancer brought her to mind too many times to count. Mom and later her sister, my aunt Phyllis Jean, had breast cancer. As I went through chemo, I remembered Mom's battle first with breast cancer then later, because the doctors did not follow up with her treatment properly, her battle with bone cancer. I will be most diligent to make sure I have regular check ups even after being declared cancer free. I know that treatment has changed much since the 1990's. Thank you to Rick, my step-dad, for loving her through the end, for helping me put it all together in my mind, and for helping me emotionally by talking through it all with me to help me to understand her journey and to walk through mine with Jesus.

~ Music was a big part of my life because of my mom's love of music. She sang a lot! You saw how much music reminds me of her. She sang, she played music in the car, we watched musicals. We bought magazines that had the lyrics to the latest country songs and sat at the table and sang them together. Sometimes we'd record ourselves on a cassette tape player.

~ The song I was named after, Tell Laura I Love Her. I was also named after the elderly lady, Lori Morrow, whom my father rented a room from in college. I called her Grandma Lori and her husband Grandpa Leland when I was little. Diane was from my mom's best friend in high school.

Jesus, please tell Momma I love her. Tell Momma I need her. Tell Momma not to cry.  I know her love for me will never die. I know she's crying no tears in Heaven, but I'm crying more than a few for her as I miss her, and I honor her on her 76th birthday.

Barbara Kay Ramsbottom Conklin Hall may her name be blessed forever.

Thank you Jesus for my momma.
Amen.


Note: My dad is James (Jim) Conklin, her first husband. The photo above is with my step-dad, her second husband, Richard (Rick) Hall. I love them both.

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