Today Should Be A Holiday

The Gipper would have been 95 today. It’s easy for me to remember Ronald Reagan’s birthday, he shared it with my mom. She would have been 73.

President Reagan, The Great Communicator, gave focus to my political thoughts. Mom gave me values. They both accomplished these things in a very similar manner. Not by saying, “this is what you should believe”, but by living out what they believed so clearly that there was no question as to what was in their heart.

Ronald Reagan was a success in Hollywood, as president of the Screen Actors Guild, Governor of California, and as President of the United States. Mom’s highest political office was in the local PTA. Her success was in her relationships with her family and friends. Here are three brief stories.

The one story that always reminds me of my mom’s great humor (another trait shared with President Reagan) occurred one April Fool’s Day. Mom called several of her friends, disguised her voice, and said that she was from the town’s water department. She told them that they would be working on the water lines that day and that the water would be cut off soon so they should get any water they would need. She then went over homes for coffee, and was amused by the pots and pans and bath tubs filled with water. To this preteen, that was one of the funniest April Fool’s Day pranks I had ever heard of.

Early in my high school years I came home upset about the clothes I had. I don’t remember if someone had made fun of them, or if I had just realized that girls noticed that sort of thing. Mom somehow saw that I was upset, coaxed an explanation from me, and took action. She drove me to a clothing store, gave me some money (which looking back I know that we didn’t have much to spare) and told me to go in and get what I wanted. I remember picking out a pair of bell bottoms with white, green, and light red stripes. Hey, it was the 70′s. What I remember more vividly is knowing that she cared.

And it just wasn’t her family and friends that she cared about. Her values and beliefs also applied to complete strangers. In her last years she was struck by cancer. But even the disease that took her strength and eventually her life couldn’t touch the things that made her what she was. Chemo-therapy had caused her to lose her hair. In public she would wear a wig. One day she was in the local pharmacy to get a prescription filled. They were busy and there was an older woman also waiting. As the two of them talked a third women came up to the counter, demanding service and complaining about the wait. The older woman was talking to the pharmacist, a bit confused about one of her medications while the third woman was letting her impatience show, making comments that all around her could hear. This caused the older woman to become even more flustered. Mom, who wasn’t one to speak out very often, quietly told the complainer, “just be patient. They’re doing the best they can. We’ll all be waited on soon enough.”

The woman wasn’t quite mollified. She continued to complain to mom, offering the half-hearted excuse, “I’ve just had a really bad day.”

Mom reached up, snatched the wig from her head and told the woman, “you have no idea what a really bad day is.”

The woman did have the decency to be embarrassed as she left.

Mom shares one other thing with President Reagan. We lost them both too soon. Today should be a holiday.

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