Mom's Philosophies

If I had panicked at each fall, nose bleed, every emergency or sordid detail, I would not be here. So I entered a calm mode.

Try to slow down. Take it a little easier and enjoy life while you're young. There's time enough to work like an idiot when you get to be my age.

I firmly believe that everyone, no matter how self-sufficient they think they are, needs this very private conversation with god, especially when the going gets rough.

Take advantage of opportunities, try to not ask many questions or place too many obstacles in the way or read too many words between the lines. Let your intelligence and maturity tell you who you can accept at face value, and then meet them with equal directness.

In a world where so much seems to move so quickly
And each day we have to change and readjust
There is a need for something solid to hold on to
For people we depend on and trust.

Now that we are getting older we're cherishing more day by day
The warm family ties we've established
And the love time can not take away.

If you desire to make human beings happy,
Give them a task or a cause,
And the harder, the better
It is when God calls them
That men and women arise to the crest of their power.

The state of society in the next generation depends on the manner in which the young people of today are instructed and trained toward leadership. With the wonderful training and love you receive at home, and the best possible schooling your father and I have provided, you can become a leader of leaders. In which ever direction your endeavors take you, always strive to be the best of whatever you are.

Life is what happens                                                                                                                                                                                                            For it could have occured no other way                                                                                                                                                                                  But, how it happened                                                                                                                                                                                                             Because from the very beginning                                                                                                                                                                                         That is exactly how                                                                                                                                                                                                               It was ordained to happen                                                                                                                                                                                                  And who ordained it.

Read excerpts from Chapter 1