put your hands in the air if your mom is a saint

My parents' house, which they have lived in for ten years, has been on the market for one year. In that past year, they have had four contracts on it. Yesterday, on the way to sign closing papers for the fourth potential buyer, the buyer's agent called my dad to say that the buyer was backing out. The night before this happened, my mom's suburban (which has also been hers for ten years) died the death all car owners dread. The cherry on top of that death is that on the way home from the auto shop (it was closed, the car died after dinner) is that the small crusty old car that my parents bought when I turned sixteen for my brothers and I to drive also showed signs of death. So we got home, I got in my car, we drove back to the shop, and by the next morning my mom owned no cars and two houses.

When my mom got the text from my dad that the buyer was backing out, just a few minutes before the auto shop called to confirm her car's death, she got quiet. We were getting ready to go on our morning constitutional with Max the Fat Animal, and instead of rattling off the daily schedule and asking me what my plans were, my mom was silent. My mom is hard to get down, but I figured that the past 24 hours would get just about anyone down. Even though the "15 years of poverty" I call my childhood, which we fondly look back on (mushrooms behind the couch in the grad school apartment, making 2342 paper dolls instead of buying action figures, etc.) have ended for my parents, money doesn't grow on trees, especially when the trees are planted in the back yard of a brand new house over the grave of your car. And those stresses have nothing to do with other ones: a son in Peru, a daughter that's going to start grad school in a year, a son that is in driver's ed, a million other things to take care of every day... I don't know how my mom makes it on good days!

So we're walking, my mom is still quiet, and I'm thinking, "Really, this must be partly my fault. It's because I'm not thankful enough. I don't pray enough. It's because I blogged about gay rights, probably. Or maybe because I've been thinking mean thoughts lately. And I don't take care of my body. And I don't honor my parents enough, and..." for about ten minutes. Then my mom breaks in:

"Well, I know Heavenly Father has a better plan. What a beautiful morning!" 

I didn't know what to say.

"He chastises the ones He loves. This is a test for me, but I believe in a greater plan. And it will all work out. It always does. Tomorrow is another day!"

You guys. 

That's what it's like to live with my mom. It's like the morning after the fire in the hit musical Oklahoma; I'm crying on the bed about nothing, and Aunt Eller (my mom) is like, "Life is so great! Why are you blubbering? Let's go eat breakfast and have the best day of our lives!"

So today, my mom is preparing the house to show again. And I'm just smiling still about yesterday. It's not always easy to live with a saintly mom, but I would never have it any other way.