To me, Mother Theresa is the personification of love. She was a woman that committed her whole life to serving others. She never once said, “why me?,” never uttered a single swear word, and deserves to be called the Saint some people like to think of her as. I know she always wears the same outfit, but I don’t think sense of fashion is a requirement for sainthood. Besides, I’m guessing you would be fashionably challenged too if you had 8 kids. What? Oh, you thought I was referring to Mother Theresa of Calcutta? No, I was referring to my Mother Theresa of Orange County. And that outfit she is always sporting about town isn’t a nun’s habit, it is a bright pink sweatsuit that my brother and I have our little disagreements over (I say she looks like a giant Pepto Bismol bottle in it, but he says she looks like the Easter Bunny).
My Mom always had her priorities in order, God first, then her Family, then work, then her friends. My Dad, although he was a great man, probably wasn’t the best Father or Husband who ever lived. My dad used to volunteer on skid row, drive a truckload of food and clothes down to the less fortunate in Mexico at least once a month, and went to church daily. My brothers and I can remember when we were visiting Washington D.C. as kids. It was a freezing cold winter day, and my Dad literally took his favorite jacket off and put it on the shoulders of a homeless man. Like I said, he really was a great man.
My Dad was more than a little challenged in the Fatherhood and Husband areas though (yes…even more than your fat blogging buddy). As you can imagine with 7 sons, there was always a game or a practice or some sort of sports activity going on. I cannot remember my Dad even being at one single game of mine. My Mom, amazingly, attended every one of our games. Financially, my Dad didn’t do much better. You know that sign some restaurants have that says, “Free Food tomorrow.” That would be my Dad’s sign except it would say, “I should be getting a check in two weeks.” It, like the free food, never came. This however, could not be blamed on the lack of my Dad trying every get rich scheme invented. If you had an opening in the downline of your multi-level marketing pyramid, my Dad was your sucker. Somehow he never learned his lesson in this area just as he never learned that as much as God wants us to serve others, he wants to start in our own homes with our own families.
My Mom however, she lived this lesson. If Dad wasn’t bringing home a big paycheck (or a paycheck period for that matter) my Mom picked up the slack. She would wake up, make breakfast, get everyone where they were supposed to be, and then babysit and feed neighborhood kids, prepare dinner and attempt to keep the house in order, get 2-3 hours of sleep, and then head to her second job at about 2 in the morning. Her 2nd job was in Santa Ana (I’ll put it this way…you won’t find it on any safest city list) where she would go unload bundles of paper off a truck. She did whatever it took because she had a selfless love for God and her Family.
As my Mom gets up there in age, she’s getting a little…ummm…how do I put this…kooky, I guess. She giggles and nods alot and frequently sees her kids or grandkids in strangers. The medical term is dementia, and I guess some of her actions could be expected by how she lived her life. For example, you cannot spend more than about 10 minutes with my Mom without her telling you about how much she loves her kids. Unfortunately, she repeats the same 5 stories every time. Let’s see there is the one how after the birth of her third child, the nurse came in and yelled at her to not have any more kids. That one is kind of funny if you ask me. I mean, just how ugly was my brother Paul that when he was born a nurse would come yell at the woman that gave birth to him. I can safely laugh here because I was a very cute baby. At least I think I was. I was the 7th of 8 kids so although my eldest siblings had lots of pictures, there was only one picture that my Mom is “pretty sure” is me. Surprisingly, I was actually very tan as a baby and had almost a full afro.
Then there are other actions that you wouldn’t necessarily expect from my Mom. For example, I recently took her to the airport with me to pick up my oldest daughter. Everything was going very smoothly at the airport until we got to the security area. There was a big sign that instructed everyone to remove their shoes and put them on the Xray machine with their other personal belongings. My Mom’s pink sweatsuit doesn’t have pockets so we didn’t have to worry about any personal belongings so I just let her know she was going to have to remove her psychedelic Van style slip-ons. “No” she replied and then giggled. “What!, come on Mom, everyone has to take off their shoes here” I told her. More giggles along with some head nods. “Mom!” I demanded, “let me take off your shoes we are holding up the line.” More giggles. By then, the sight of the fat guy wrestling the old lady that wouldn’t stop giggling was causing a bit of a scene and security was all over it. “Is there a problem here?” he asked. I’m sure the airport security guys see a lot, but this one seemed a little perplexed when I explained the situation. He got on his radio and called his supervisor…”Uh Sergeant…we’ve got a possible situation here. We’ve got a woman approximately 70 years old, dressed in all pink, and won’t remove her shoes OR stop giggling.” His supervisor’s response was, “Ohhh… that’s a woman, I thought it was the Easter Bunny.” Score one for my brother.
It’s not just mentally that my Mom changes as she ages, she’s got some bizarre physical changes going on as well. For example, my mom now has a beard. It isn’t a freakish bearded lady from the circus kind of beard, but kind of resembles the beard of that blind old Asian guy from all the old karate movies. On an old Asian man, it looks pretty cool. On a old Caucasian woman, not so much. We didn’t know what to do with it at first. We tried putting it in dread locks for a little bit, but that didn’t go so well. It only resulted in my Mom getting hassled unnecessarily by the cops. Apparently an old lady that looks like a rasta-farian walking around in a pink sweat suit giggling uncontrollably has “possible drug dealer” written all over them. Next, we tried to just pluck her fu-manchu by hand. I would have to always say the parents line, “Now this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” She, of course, would giggle.
Eventually I got smart, and just started shaving it. Now, it isn’t what you are picturing. We didn’t take her to the barber shop where they would put a bunch of lather on her face and then pull out the straight razor. No…apparently my extra strength nose hair trimmer also doubles as beard remover for old ladies. This is the Mother/Son type of bonding my Mom and I now share. I shave her beard and then she trims my nose hairs. Then of course, we both giggle.
Real love expressed through unselfish service, is unfortunately probably even more rare than the bearded circus ladies. If you encounter one person that truly possesses it, consider yourself lucky. I must have accidently eaten a rabbit’s foot or something recently, because I just came across another person that expressed this kind of love. His name is Lou Baum and we recently met each other’s acquaintance. We’ve only talked over the phone and via email so I have no idea what he looks like. I do have a picture in my mind of what I think Lou might look like though. Although he is about 70 years old, I bet if he wanted to, that Lou could still crush someone like me who would be exactly half his age. I would guess that when you shake Lou’s hand, you say a prayer for a quick release with no broken bones. He’s probably either bald or at least thinning on top, and may or may not have a beard (probably not as good as my Mom’s though).
Anyway, since I don’t know or really care what Lou looks like, let me tell you just some of the things that makes him so impressive. In 2003, the Ft. Worth Star telegram selected Lou as the “Man of the Year.” A few years before that, the city of Euless, TX selected Lou as the “Volunteer of the Year.” In 2001, he was flown to Washington as he was 1 of only 5 individuals in the nation that year to be presented with a certain Award that is given to individuals who significantly improve the lives of Children. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan honored Lou by requesting that he serve on and assist the National Commission on Rare Diseases. Go way back to Lou’s younger days, and he was a ballplayer. Right after he graduated high school, Lou signed on with the Washington Senators where he became good friends with another young ballplayer that you may have even heard of… only the great Mickey Mantle.
Anyway, now you can see why although I’ve never met him in person, I think Lou is such a stud. Why am I writing about Lou? He needs our help. Lou is the President and Chairman of the Board of a charity called The World Life Foundation. This is a charity that was created to make available, and support, research, medical and scientific projects for those interested in rare metabolic diseases. Imagine if your son or daughter was sick, really sick and you took them to the doctor only to be told that they have no idea what is so horribly affecting your child. They would probably then refer you to a specialist who after unsuccessfully diagnosing your kid’s illness, would refer you to a different specialist. All the while, your child is getting sicker and sicker, while the doctors scratch their heads and wonder what it might be. Unbeknownst to them, a child on the other side of the world might be exhibiting the same symptoms, and the doctor’s there might have some critical information that could save the life of your child. If you are like me, the Lord blessed you with very healthy children and you now take their health for granted. So imagining this scenario above, might be a little difficult for you.
Lou doesn’t have to imagine this. Lou’s daughter Catherine has a rare liver disorder and at the young age of 21, Catherine is the oldest person in the world with this disorder. There was a young man in England that had it that was a year older than Catherine, but he passed away last year. So now, as the medical community watches Catherine’s progress, Lou works two jobs even at the age of 70, and gets to deal with bureaucracy. You see for her survival, Catherine needs medicine flown in from Germany and Japan every two weeks. It, like all of her medical expenses, is very costly. Fortunately, it is covered by medicare. Well, I should say it was covered by medicare. When her last shipment didn’t arrive, Lou called to inquire on its whereabouts only to be told then (not in advance) that medicare wasn’t picking it up anymore and that Catherine wouldn’t be receiving her medication that day. Unfortunately, Lou is used to this type of thing as he has been dealing with red tape for years.
The World Life Foundation provides all of its services for free. So, I thought along with a measly financial contribution, I could also help by passing along this information (I do have an audience of 4 people now as my brother Pat- not to be confused with the ugly baby Paul, his wife, and their oldest daughter said they would continue to read my blog). If you realize how fortunate you are because your little blessings don’t have some rare disorder and you can make a financial donation, please do so. If you can help in some other way, do that. If you cannot do either right now, I just ask that you keep the Baum Family, The World Life Foundation, and all of the people it helps in your prayers. The World Life Foundation can be reached at 800-289-LIFE (5433) and donations can be sent to P.O. Box 571 in Bedford, TX 76095. Thank you for prayerfully considering this and just to give you an extra incentive, for anyone that helps financially, I’ll let their kid shave the Easter Bunny this year.
