It's April, springtime I always think about my mom, Frankie Carolyn Betts. I lost my mom in April of 1994. I have missed her over the years. There are many reasons I miss my mom. One of the biggest is my kids. My mother wanted me to have kids very badly. She would have loved my kids, I learned that the mother’s curse is very strong. You see my wife and myself adopted 3 children. Twin boys and their sister that is 1 year older. The boys are 16 and the princess is 17.
You all know the mother’s curse “I hope you have a child just like you.” Well, I have a son just like me. He has my dry sense of humor, looks at life like I do kind of sideways and is as sarcastic as I am. The mother’s curse is so strong the child does not even have to be genetically connected to you for it to work. My point is here mothers should be more careful about throwing around that curse.
My mom or Carolyn as she was known, she hated the name, Frankie. That in itself is another story. She never got to meet my kids she would have loved them and given me all kinds of grieve about how to raise them blah blah. Mom stuff. She would defend the boys and say “now son they are just boys”. What I would give just to hear her say that once.
I like the spring because it seems like it is a time of renewal. It means that fishing is getting good, golf is good and the weather is really nice. My mom knew that I loved the spring. The spring of 1982 I had been away from home for 6 months. I was 19 and my mom missed me and wanted me home. She wrote me a letter. She did not write me, other people, yes me, no. In the letter she tried her best to describe the colts in the pasture on the way to her house, the fawns with their mothers, the vineyards turning green and the quail families running around. It read like a cheap novel and I loved the letter because I knew she wanted me home. I think about that letter every April maybe that is what triggered this.
You see I left home in the fall to go to a job and to be closer to a girl that I thought I loved. I now know that I really love her. This girl became my wife in March of 1983 and we have just crossed 33 years of marriage.
It would seem that No girl is ever good enough for a mom’s son. This girl named Pamela was no exception as far as my mom was concerned. My mom and my wife eventually became very close and would team up against me. Not fair in any world, your wife and your mom against you. The only way for it to be worse is your daughter gets involved. I can only image what that would have been like. To say that my wife misses my mom too would be an understatement. My mom’s death came just 2 months before the death of my wife’s grandmother who lived with us. My wife’s grandmother raised her and was like her mom. My wife lost 2 moms in 2 months that was rough for both of us.
Enough about that. My mom did not have it easy as a kid, her mom did her best. She did not have the best parents, her dad was not a nice or even close to being a good man. Her dad made her life very unpleasant. This gave her empathy and compassion. My mother would babysit for young moms that needed a break. My mom would arrange for luncheons at the house and invite those she thought were having problems at home. I can think of 5 different women that had abusive husbands that slept on our couch for a week or more. Carolyn was a very good self-taught accountant and helped many families that had small businesses keep their books straight including my dad.
My mom and dad lived in a small town in Northern California, Cloverdale. My mom was known all over town as a go-to person if you needed help. 400 people showed up for her memorial service.
The example my mom set has had a very strong impact on my life. It goes a little further than that. I had a very rare muscle disease that is normally fatal. My mom and dad move to California to provide me with treatment in Mexico that might help. Well, the treatment saved my life. If they would not have done this I would have died. I was very underdeveloped muscularly however not with height. I was always tall and super skinny. To give you an idea, at graduation I was 6’3” and weighted 12o lb. Thus, my mom was slightly over protective.
I had a hard time in school. I could not compete with the other kids. That hurt a lot because I loved to play ball. I played harder than any other kid did, just to be bad. My mom would talk to me and help me through it. She talked to me about my emotions helped me to understand them and maybe how the other kids felt. I miss those conversations. What would really be interesting would be the conversations my boys would have had with my mom.
When I lost my mom I wrote her letters. This helped me to heal. I should have kept the letters I didn’t. So why am I telling you about Frankie Carolyn Betts? I guess to give you some insight as to who I am. I was taught by my mom to treat women with respect, cherish them, to give them honor and to always treat a woman like a lady. When my mother-in-law’s friends come over I spoil them. I make a different tea for each of them. I have treats I hide from the kids and break them out to go with their tea. It is how I was taught. I do my best.
How does this relate to real estate? I don’t know. My mom taught me something when I was about 24. I was telling her about how grateful I was for what Bill Roberts and Roy Ott had taught me at work. She asked me if I could ever repay them. What I thought about is and answered no. She said there is a way. How? I asked. By teaching someone else or training them you are repaying those that taught you. I guess because of this I have worked hard at treating my customers as moms and sisters. When working with a single woman I have a tendency to be more protective of them. Women that are older I treat them the way I would want my mom treated. I seem to work a little harder on these because this is my way of thanking my mom.
I think the real reason I wrote this was strictly for me. I think I needed to do this. Maybe just to say thank you to my mom. Possibly as a reminder for all of us to say thank you to those you love while you can.
I co-authored a book with Ryan Fletcher and a few other very caring and protective agents who are disgusted with the low information agents and their brokers. Part of the reason I did this was because of my mom. She taught me to help others. This is my way of helping to undo some of the damage that has been done to our industry by these greedy, unethical agents and brokers. The time for change is now and the movement has started. Are you going to join us? If so go to freebook4mankind.com to get yourself a copy of THE VALUE-DRIVEN APPROACH TO SELL REAL ESTATE: A Practical Guide to Protect Yourself From Real Estate Greed & Bank an Extra $30,000 Profit by Thinking Like the Great Warren Buffet. Join the battle and protect yourself.
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