My mother, Merchar

For those of you who know my mother, you know what an endearing, interesting, mysterious woman she is. Raised in Brazil as a missionary kid and the wife of a farmer in the Central Valley, these descriptions are only a start in telling about my mom. I was so moved by my sister Dani's blog on my mom recently that I just had to steal her entry and post it here. A beautiful and witty tribute to my mother...

"She likes to analyze you and herself. She is full of contradictions and I let her know that all of the time. She is the reason I am me in so many ways. She encourages me to be a feminist even though she is not one. She is inwardly feisty yet extremely, annoyingly, self-deprecatingly meek and humble. She encourages me to question things that she cannot or will not herself. She knows the importance of coming to your own conclusions and not accepting things at face value. She questions many things about herself--although irritating at times, it has shown me the importance of openness and honesty about yourself, maybe to a fault. She is infamous for her probing questions.

Sometimes her naivete about the world is a little shocking for someone of her age and intelligence. But then she will text you and sign off with 'lol' and you wonder if she really is that naive about the world and pop culture or if she just feigns innocence for the fun of it. She doesn't like to be called a closet liberal despite her views on foreign policy and the war because she voted for Bush twice and really likes Sarah Palin (I don't believe it, but I'll respect her wishes begrudgingly.)

Most people really like my mom. In high school my sisters and I had some friends that would come over just to hang out with her instead of us. Maybe because they really needed a good therapy session and she will analyze you without you even realizing it. People who don't like my mom are just shallow and don't get her and it's really too bad because I think she is often misunderstood. Possibly because she's so full of contradictions that you have to get to know her to take it all in and appreciate the confusion for what it is and not try to fit her into some silly box that you've contrived.

We call her Merchar and I have no clue why. But that's just our family. The original Merchar was actually a siamese cat we had for like 15 years, Milo. Most pets of ours usually start with one name and end with a completely different one. That's mostly Monique's doing. Just ask her what her latest name is for her husband. Or don't ask, if you don't like hearing peoples' pet names for each other. Yvette doesn't really. Nevertheless, we call my mom Merchar respectfully and lovingly and her license plate is even 'MERCHAR'. So if you ever drive by my mom just honk and wave and she will probably freak out that a stranger just did that (even if she knows you, her vision is horrible and she won't recognize you) and she'll then try to analyze later why some random person on the freeway would do such a thing.

I love my mom."

I couldn't have said it better, Dani.