Here’s a great teacher that I never had in class—my mother, Helen C. Conway.

How do I know she was a great teacher? At the time of her death, I was amazed at the number of her students who attended her wake and funeral. Nearly every one of them praised her teaching ability and her care and concern for students.

A year later, when our parents’ home was sold, I was responsible for going through Mom’s papers, including her class notes. It was fascinating to read how she approached classics of English literature including novels, plays and poetry. I still have those notes—nearly 20 years later.

Of course, growing up I knew that Mom loved to read. I remember looking at the books on the shelves in our home library and seeing diverse titles like Francis Thompson’s The Hound of Heaven, Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, and, of course, William Shakespeare’s collected works.

When I began to write a regular newspaper column for Catholic newspapers, Mom was my greatest supporter. But she was also my most serious critic—never hesitating to correct my writing style or question my thinking on a given subject.

Of course my mother taught me a lot more than literature and writing. She taught all her children  faith and values and she was a powerful witness to God’s love and forgiveness.

She loved to quote the poet Alexander Pope:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest.The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from Home,Rests and expatriates in a life to come. 

Hope springs eternal, Mom would say. She taught us many things, but how to be filled with hope was at the top of the list!