“We are born of love; love is our mother.” — Rumi, poet, 13th century

“Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.” — Robert Browning, poet, 19th century

One undergoes many trials and tribulations in life — some far more than others.

The trials in my own life, while many, have always seemed a little less weighty because of the strength and support of my mother, Shirley Whiteman.

Mom, 87, is having a rough time of it with her health right now. And I admit, it scares the hell out of me.

I am the 14th of 15 children. When I was young, I remember my mother would talk a lot — to plants, to flowers, to seemingly no one as she worked around the house. When I became a mother, I realized why.

How else is a child to build a vocabulary and an understanding of the world? By her seemingly random conversation, I learned the names of plants and flowers and animal tracks in the yard.

She talked throughout the grocery store, explaining the ingredients she was buying for whatever she was making for dinner.

And my brother and I loved going to Loblaws, and then Bells, at the Bradford Mall. The bulk food section had a little piggy bank — if I remember correctly it was shaped like a little red house — that played music when you dropped in change. And with a coin, you could get a piece of candy.

We never had much money, but we never wanted for anything either. Mom loved to shop at yard sales, and my brother and I had a huge collection of Fisher Price Little People and buildings.

Our house has a concrete floor in the basement, and Mom would give us chalk to draw towns and roads and lakes and whatever else we needed for our Little People world. We would throw darts in the basement, too. And Mom never seemed to mind the holes that were everywhere but on the dartboard.

She never minded our forays into landscaping, either. The dams we built in the stream in our backyard, the grass worn away in prime spots under the tree in the front yard, the sidewalk blocked off in the winter with snow walls to help our sleds “bank” better coming down the hill.

We stripped the quince bush in the yard of its leaves to use as money in games. We had clothes covered with pine pitch from climbing the rows of trees out back.

And we had “creek shoes” for walking through the swamp out back. Country kids knew not to go barefoot. Mom taught us that.

As an adult, married and pregnant with my own child, I realized the immense amount of time, dedication and love my mother put into raising her children — and the neighbor kids, and our friends, etc.

My daughter was born with heart problems. We had many visits to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and many procedures and surgeries in her young life.

One day, my mother said to me, “I don’t know how you do it. I am so proud of you.”

I admit, I’m crying a little writing that. This woman, a mother of 15 and the hardest working person I know, commended me for being a mother.

I’ve been honored by the Associated Press, by my journalistic peers; I’ve been on television; I’ve interviewed celebrities, congressmen, senators, governors and even covered a former president.

Yet nothing has made me feel better than my mother’s praise.

A few weeks ago, someone in the office was chastising a child for not appreciating her parent. That resonated with me.

I would ask everyone to take a moment — it doesn’t have to be Mother’s Day or Father’s Day — to think about the lessons learned from one’s parent or parents. As an adult, I can understand that no one is infallible, and my mother has never claimed to be.

She has taught me to laugh, to love, to be a person I could be proud to see looking back at me in the mirror. And I can only hope that I am following in her footsteps with my own child.

Those footsteps are a pretty great place to be.

(Schellhammer is the Era’s associate editor. She can be reached at marcie@bradfordera.com)