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Blogs by Shelby Adams Lloyd
My mentor is Virginia Dare Smith Lloyd 4/25/2008 3:22:13 PM
What would we do if we couldn't read? Wouldn't it be one of the worse things that could happen to you? I know about this because my mother-in-law is that way now. Let me tell you about my sweet, lovable mother-in-law. She has been my mother since the day I married her son. Since I never knew my mother, who died when I was three, she became the mother I have always loved and cherish.
She loved to read and she read my book before her eyes became blind and her hearing was lost. She doesn't know me now but she is the love of my life. If there was ever a more loving lady in this world, it is MaMa.
She read everything she could find to read. Even if it was racy and sexy, she still read it. I must have given her over 300 books to read over the past 45 years. I was a member of a book club and bought books each month and when I was finished, she was the first person to get them. Even when I went to the library and she was along, I got books for her to read. We would stay up late at night, not wanting to go to bed before finishing our books. Then we would discuss them and she told me so many times that I should write a story of my life in the orphanage but I said, "No it wouldn't be very good, MaMa." She would smile and ask me if I wanted to write? Of course I said yes to her.
After I got my first computer she asked me again if I wanted to put words on paper. That is the way she said it. So many times I said I just didn't have the time with me working a full time job. She then said and I remember the words to this day. "Shelby, you are better than you think. You have what it takes to be a writer, so why not try something you have always wanted to do?" I said, "MaMa, I am 60 years old, who would want to read something from an old woman." She smiled and said, "Where there's a will, there's a way. Get busy and start something so I can read it before the Lord calls me home."
She read my book and gave me hints on how to carry out the story line. I wish she knew today that I have finally published my book but she doesn't know me now and lives in a rest home in Shallote, NC. She is the idol in my life and every week when I go to see her I keep hoping she will know me. The sweet lady will be 99 in August and she still has fewer wrinkles than me. A find christian lady who wants to leave this old world and go home to her loved ones who have long gone ahead of her, such as PaPa, her husband.
The one thing she always told me was to be kind to others because one day they will remember it and say that you are a good person. I love this lady as a mother and I still say there is no better mother in the world.
