Margaret Elizabeth Tapley Hudson – “Bettye”
Dear Mom,
Thank you for taking care of me when I was just a kid. Thank you for always loving me no matter what I did. Thank you for giving me a great love of music too and the poetry inside my heart began by watching you. Thank you for sitting me on the kitchen counter and teaching me how to cook; letting me eat cake batter and pretending not to look!
Thanks for letting me stay up late to watch old movies in black and white. Some of my fondest memories were spent with you, watching TV at night. I remember the first time the story line of a movie cut through my heart like a knife. It was a film we watched together, starring Lana Turner and John Gavin called The Imitation of Life.
Thank you too for afternoons spent picking four-leaf clovers. I’d love to go back in time again and search for them over and over.
Whenever I smell a Gardenia, it is deja vu of one of your favorite colognes. And thank you for all the times you clapped when I sang with a hairbrush for a microphone.
Thanks for the Sunday drives through our little town, to places I had not yet seen, and for ending each trip with a final stop at the local Dairy Queen.
Thank you too for all the shopping trips to buy me shoes and fun, fashionable clothes. I still enjoy shopping to this day…yes that’s a girl thing I suppose.
Thank you for every present you bought and wrapped and tied with bows. The times you made Christmas special, under the Tree a treasure trove!
For the lessons learned by working hard, the allowance poster board comes to mind. The silver and gold stars by our names when we completed our chores…each time.
You taught us to give back to God, our quarters in the offering plate. That has resonated with my heart and I continuing giving to this very date.
I’ll never forget our family time, around the kitchen table after dinner. You and Dad read Bible stories giving each of us kids a glimmer, of the faith and hope and love instilled inside your hearts from our Grandparents. What a beautiful gift you’ve left for Karen, Bobby, Bonita and I to inherit.
Like all families there were times when there was adversity, but that’s not what I will remember or what my heart will see. When I think of you my heart will praise God for the Mother he gave to me.
Margaret Elizabeth Tapley Hudson, my beautiful Mom, “Bettye”.
I Love You Mom,
Marie Elaine