At Mom’s (Grandma’s, Great Grandma’s….) 80th birthday party, I started to collect thank you messages from those who were able to make it to the celebration in South Dakota. While I failed to get everyone on the record, I imagine it still would have been impossible to adequately express how much we love our mother.

Listen to this piece by clicking the play button above. Or to download the MP3 file, 1) go to this page 2) right click on the player then 3) choose “Save audio as…”/ from the menu.

Tracy also had some nice words to say to Mom before (after?) cutting the cake…

Committed

Always dedication and loyalty to a cause

Adventurous

Willingness to take risks

Straight forward, which is honest and frank. We all get that from you.

Resilient

Strong and tough

Recovers from things in difficult conditions

Perseveres, we all get that from you too. You know how to stick with it and hang in there and get done what needs to get done.

But, you know, sometime back we had a conversation when you said, I wonder what people are going to say about me…. What you said is, I can’t imagine what they would say about me. I said, Mom, I know what I would say about you… I couldn’t figure out the right word for it… I finally figured out the word is servant. So, let’s talk about the word servant.

Devoted helpful follower or supporter.

True leadership is servanthood.

It’s a way of ministry and one who is obedient or faithful to God or Christ.

You’re all of those things.

The reason why I picked the word servant is because I think about how you and Dad went and got Uncle Rudy and brought him home to your house. You took care of your sisters… You went out to Aunt Virginia. You spent three months with Aunt Goldie recently. You went to Sarah’s house when she was having a baby. You helped Joseph when he thought he had his car stolen. You were at Amy’s house when she had surgery. You took care of Lucy. You went to Becky’s house when she had… You guys are always there in service to other members of the family. And we love you for it and we can all learn something from you.

Happy Birthday!

More pictures, videos…

Ginger also put together a nice collection of pictures and videos on Shutterfly. For a link, check for an email message from Lucy Lou on October,10 2018.