What My Mom Taught Me ...

As Mother\'s Day approaches I am grateful to have had a mom who modeled so much that I find I have incorporated in my own life and has supported me in a myriad of ways. The most impactful memories of my mom for me was her strength and perseverance, her love for music in particular the violin and piano. As a young woman she loved her violin but the opportunity for her to pursue a musical career as a poor black girl seemed remote. My grandmother who was a proud teacher in Oklahoma was unable to get a position teaching in California after relocating the family and to take care of her family she became a maid to a loving prestigious family in Beverley Hills Ca. That family heard my mom play the violin and were so impressed they graciously offered to sponsor a recital at their home to raise money to send her away to school to The Rochester School of Music in New York where she finished school. No one in her family had ever been away to school, this was an amazing opportunity. Later my mom shared her passion as a concert violinist touring across the US playing for Black churches and ultimately had the distinction of being the first black person to be hired as musician in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. My mother passed away at 95 so you can image the times she lived in and what a major accomplishment this must have been for she and her family. We were never a wealthy family but always a family of service and sometimes struggle. My mom formally left her music to raise my brother and I. Eventually she went into social work but there was always the sound of music in our home. Even as a tiny infant I remember her giving violin and piano lessons in our home and this became a practice all the way through her nineties. In her 60\'s she opened a preschool which was indeed was a labor of love and here again she focused on the Arts making it available to the children living in Inglewood and surrounding areas. 100\'s of children graduated over the years from that little preschool and one thing for sure they each receive loving discipline, basic rudimentary learning of the basics and each one left with a strong appreciation for the Arts, piano, violin, karate and ballet. Mom was almost 80 when she retired from her preschool but she continued giving lessons to students and then started a new project of writing music. She created several albums where she wrote the music and lyrics and she called her albums Vickie\'s Sacred Gems. Those she never really sold any just creating music and listening to her creations gave her great joy and satisfaction. Happy Mothers Day .. Mom. What are your memories of your mom or mom figure in your life? My mom wasn\'t perfect she had flaws like all moms but there was so many wonderfully positive aspects of her that I have had the honor to make my own ... such as the ability to see all people as the children of one God. One of the last songs she wrote and was very proud of .. was What Color is Love .. A Child Wants to Know" I miss you mom..