"What did your mother teach you"

Click here to listen to Dr. Joey tell his story!

With our daughters going back to school, I was thinking recently about how much I learned from my mother. My mother taught me to appreciate a job well done, telling my brother and me, “If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning.” I learned logic from her when she told me, “Because I said so, that's why” and, “If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the store with me.”

My mother taught me how to plan ahead—“Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident” and about stamina—“You'll sit there until all that liver is gone.” She was a weather expert as well, telling me once, “This room of yours looks like a tornado went through it” and evidently studied medicine before I was born because I still remember her saying, “If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they’re going to freeze like that” and even must have studied law, teaching me about justice: “One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you!”

Mom, they are, and they’re wonderful! I thank God you taught me so much!

Discover more great stories like this one!