Mother's Day Thoughts
On Mother's Day, and the other holidays and anniversary dates of both good and bad times, we remember the people and times that have been a part of our lives. This photo is of my mom Laquita Bell Neill, me as an infant, my grandmother Dorothy Parker Bell and great grandmother Emily Anne Payne Parker taken in front of the family home in Carrollton. I have been fortunate to have shaped by many good influences in my life and that caused me to be different and to think and act for myself without regard to what others may think. My mom would be at the top of that list of influencers. My mom was a teacher for many years and each of the stories she has told of the adversities and triumphs that students had over the decades gave insight into the reality what lives are actually like especially in a small town. The calendar puts Mother's Day and High School Graduation in almost the same week. The stories my mom has told over the years are ones I will always remember - the adversities, the girls who became pregnant in high school, students who left town after graduation because they were gay, students who were abused and beaten, students who were bullied because they were different or were a different color, those who took their own lives, and the triumphs, those with academic difficulties who finished school, those who found a way to go to college, those who had a dysfunctional family but succeeded with one of their own, and so on. One of the most important things I have learned from her is not to judge others whose stories we do not fully know and understand and to speak out against what is wrong at the right time and place. Each experience we have, each person we ever know, each opportunity we ever have, whether good or bad, whether successful or a failure, becomes a part of who we are.
--- Robert W. Neill, Jr. is a sixth-generation farm and land owner and a licensed real estate broker who represents buyers of farm, land and real estate properties and is an investor in small businesses and startup companies. He can be contacted through his web site at landhungry.com
