My mom liked nice things. She liked clothes. She loved shoes. She liked the latest appliances and kitchen gadgets. She liked Hummels and (a few) nicknacks. She liked jewelry. She liked all those “free” giveaways that came with makeup. Even during her last months of life, she was thumbing through magazines and turning the corners down on advertisements for things that appealed to her.

I wouldn’t exactly say that my mother was materialistic, but she did like things–and sometimes it drove me a little crazy.

But the funny thing is that now I have many of her things and I’m finding a certain comfort in them. Her good wool jacket kept me warm these last two winters. Her knives are better and sharper than mine. Her vacuum cleaner actually sucks up dust and debris. I also enjoy her Rowena iron. (Thanks, Mom, for buying quality.)

I also enjoy wearing her diamond(s). Her dishes and pink glassware/goblets are lovely. I love wrapping myself up in her quilt and having the Swedish Woven blanket on my chair.

I’m a “material” girl in another way, of course. Get me inside a quilt shop and I’ll almost always find something that I need/want. Beautiful yarn can be almost equally enticing. I recently bought a pretty cool serger that has air-jets to thread those loopers with the push of a button.

This Mother’s Day, I’m remembering my mom who taught me to sew and how to iron a shirt. Not that I actually do iron shirts much, but I happened to iron one this morning and thought of her. She also taught me how to make the best dinner rolls ever and perfect cheesecake. She probably wouldn’t want to take credit for my housekeeping, er, dis-abilities, but she did teach me to clean toilets and dust.

And I’m enjoying being surrounded by some of her things. It has come as a surprise to me, this comfort in her things. I suppose it is because it’s all I have left of her. I keep thinking of the verse that talks about the perishable putting on the imperishable, mortality putting on immortality (1 Cor 15:33.) It says that when that happens then “Death will be swallowed up in victory.”

One Sunday not long ago, we sang “Oh death, where is your victory? Oh hell, where is your victory?” I sang with tears streaming down my face even while my heart and voice belted out those words. The truth is, death still does have a sting. It is when the perishable truly puts on the imperishable and mortality finally puts on immortality that the sting of death will finally be over. For me, that is still in the future. And it may be why Mom’s perishable things bring comfort. It’s a small comfort, of course, in comparison with the hope of eternal life, but it is a comfort. And I’m glad for it, for all Mom’s thiings.