Mom’s Award

A while back my sister and I found out that the Retired Women’s Teachers Association wanted to give my mother an award for her service.  They wanted my sister and me to be at the ceremony to accept the award on her behalf.  My sister got a nice portrait picture on my mother made by cropping one the family portraits we had taken when my sister and I graduated from Carleton University.

My sister wanted me to make a speech.

The ceremony was being held over lunch at a fancy golf club in Burlington.  My sister and her husband and Barb and I got there early and met some of my Mom’s old friends.  My brother-in-law and I were the only men in the whole room.

The ceremony began and one of my Mom’s old friends gave a speech about my mother.  Her speech went on and on.  The whole time she was speaking, I was thinking how I could shorten my speech.  Finally, they called us up to receive the award and I asked if I could say a few words.  My sister whispered to me “a very few words”.

I had a mindmap laid out in front of me with my speech on it but I only spoke to about two branches.  We found out my mother was president of the Retired Women’s Teachers Association at one time.  My sister and I never even knew.  In my speech, I said that we never thought of my mother as a leader but she had some great leadership qualities now that we think of it.  She was a great listener and she was an extreme optimist.

I related a story of my mother with her teaching partner, Laurie.  One time, Laurie dropped a large jar of yellow paint on the floor.  My mother looked at the floor and Laurie quickly said “Don’t tell me ‘at least it wasn’t black’”.