Celebrating My Mom’s 85th Birthday
- Anthony Kathol
- 21 hours ago
- 3 min read
Last weekend, I took some time to stop and visit my mom in Yankton to celebrate her 85th birthday. It was a busy day filled with calls, text messages, and visits from her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. My mom is doing well, considering her age, and is still able to drive around town to attend Mass, visit the senior center, pick up her groceries, and visit my brother at the local nursing home.
My mother has truly been blessed. She has persevered through many trials and tribulations throughout her life and continues to model the importance and dignity of human life, despite its challenges, from conception to natural death.
One of the greatest blessings I have received as I have grown older is watching my mom grow deeper in her faith and love for God. Every time I visit her, I cherish those moments when we attend daily Mass together and/or recite the Rosary together as faithful prayer warriors.
It is not a coincidence that we share similar prayer intentions. It is also a reminder of my childhood, when our entire family would gather together in the dining room during the Season of Lent to pray the Rosary. This was one of many examples of how my parents passed their faith on to their children.
Earlier this summer, my mom shared a story with me that I had never heard before. She pulled out a stainless-steel bracelet that she has kept for more than fifty years. She told me that she received this bracelet when she and my dad attended the first organized Right to Life Prayer Rally in Pierre, South Dakota, in the early 1970s, following the Supreme Court’s infamous Roe v. Wade decision on January 22, 1973.
According to my mother, she was instructed at the rally never to take off the bracelet until Roe v. Wade was overturned.
This past June, we celebrated the fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Through her prayers and by serving as a role model for the dignity of human life within our family, my mom lived to see the day when the Court overturned Roe. She embraces the Church's teaching that we are made in God's likeness and image and that all human life matters.
Why do I share this story? Because my mom embraced her calling to the vocation of marriage at the young age of 18. She has set an example for me and the rest of my siblings of what it means to be a woman, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a sister, an aunt, and a neighbor.
She bore ten children, in addition to experiencing four miscarriages. Today, she has thirty living grandchildren and multiple great-grandchildren.
When I reflect on the challenges she faced raising all ten of us, I truly believe it was by the grace of God that she was able to persevere through life’s sufferings, challenges, and heartaches.
Yet through it all, my mother (and father) taught us to cherish life. When we recognize the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, we are drawn closer to Christ and become more like Him.
As I conclude this post, I am reminded of the Scripture passage I read on the Feast of Saint Monica this past Thursday:
“Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.” — Isaiah 49:15
Happy 85th Birthday, Mom. May God continue to bless you abundantly for the faith, love, and example you have given to all of us.
Take care and God bless.
Comments