Lessons From Mama

The last few months have been hard. In so many ways, they’ve been hard. For my family, as for so many others, having our mother in a nursing home room for months without benefit of her family’s touch or any meaningful conversations was absolutely crushing. At times it was hard to breathe for the weight of it. I know I am far from alone.

So when God chose to take our mama to heaven on May 7, the blessing was not difficult to see. Our beloved mother, Mary Runnels, was three months shy of her hundredth birthday and now she is whole and healthy again. I wish I could have had one last conversation with her as she was when her mind was unabridged by dementia, but we did get to spend a couple of days with her just prior to her passing, thanks to the kindness of her caregivers, and in that time, she told me she loved me. She knew me. Even in her altered mental state, she always immediately knew each of her sons and daughters. What more could a child ask?

In the quiet of my mother’s absence from this world, I have had much time to reflect. She taught us all so much, but relative to this column and to the work I do every day, I find new gratitude in her lessons on finance, spending, saving and preparing for an uncertain future.

“Save for a rainy day,” was something my mother often said. Even when she and my dad were rearing a large family on a meager Army salary, Mama saved something every single month, and she had a Christmas Club account until the banks stopped offering them. (And the balance of that Christmas Club account was all that was spent on Christmas.) The phrase “pay yourself first” wasn’t really in vogue then, but moving money to savings was the first thing she did. When I was a child, I was never allowed to spend all my birthday money or what I had earned through dog sitting or babysitting. I had to put half into savings, then could spend the rest.

“Always have a stash for emergencies,” said my mama. As kids, when we needed movie money or a small amount for some various activity, Mama would reach into the antique salt cellar that sat on a kitchen shelf and pull out just what we needed. If the expense were a little larger, she would disappear into the back of the house and come out with bills. Once I opened a photo album and out fell several hundred dollars. I don’t know if this habit of my mom’s came from her childhood in the Great Depression, but it’s a practice I adopted myself. There’s comfort to me in knowing I have a few extra dollars here and there, just in case of an emergency, and on more than one occasion, that “hidden twenty” in my wallet has saved me.

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is one I often repeat. Mama was the youngest of 17 children, and she and my dad reared six. Hand-me-downs are simply a fact of life in large families. To this day, I have no qualms whatsoever about a gift of used clothing or appliances or what-have-you from a family member or friend. To waste was a sin in the world of Mary Runnels, and I’m ok with that. Oh, and did she love garage sales! On the eve of her burial, we family sat around telling “Nunna” stories, and many of her grandchildren reminded each other of the Saturday morning fun “garage sale hopping” with Nunna. Did she need (financially) to shop from among other people’s cast-offs? Of course not; she just loved a bargain!

“Waste not, want not.” Mama’s frugality in the kitchen is legendary. We children were not guilted with stories of starving children in Africa; we simply didn’t get a choice but to eat what was prepared. She used saccharine tablets in her tea because sugar was too expensive. She washed tin foil and dried it in the oven. Zip-top bags were too costly, so we used old bread bags or plastic wrap. We ate food from the garden and the freezer, no matter how old it was. (Green beans lost to the back of the freezer since 1983 were served in 2010, if memory serves.) She did not have a garbage disposal because she didn’t need one; nothing went to waste. Oh, and milk… When I was growing up, the family made our monthly trek to Columbus Air Force Base to shop at the commissary. At least three or four of us had to go so we could each push a basket while Mama filled them up. One entire basket would be lined with cardboard cartons of milk. When we got home, into the freezer those cartons would go. The child who used the last of the milk in the refrigerator without getting out another carton to thaw had hell to pay in the Runnels household!

Here’s one of my favorites: “Watch your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.” As a financial professional, I value this advice more every day. If you hadn’t guessed, Mama handled the finances in our household. She balanced her checkbook to the penny and she never spent money she didn’t have. She would drive across town to pay 15 cents less for a loaf of bread, because to her – no matter how much she and my dad had – 15 cents was respected. Mama never lost her appreciation for the value of a dollar, and I so admired that about her. She picked up pennies off the ground and was grateful for the good fortune; I do the same.

My last Mama lesson is not something I never really realized I had taken from her. I can’t begin to count the number of times she said, “He/she/they need it more than I do.” What she was referring to was the money, food, gift, or other assistance she was offering to another person. My mama believed in God and as such, she believed it was her responsibility to help other people. I remember her telling me, “How am I supposed to expect God to do for me if I don’t do for others?” Her family and friends had to be careful about admiring something she had, or we would find it in our hands as a gift from her. She would, quite literally, give the shirt off her back, and the last dollar in her wallet.

So many lessons from a century of life, and I am all the better for the learning. Thank you for allowing me the indulgence of honoring Mary Runnels.