Two Good Things I Remember About My Mother

Full disclosure: My mother's name was Pamela Adele Milligan ... Schaper.

I can't call her "Mom" anymore, though, since she was not a good mother. I pretty much had to fire her toward the end of her life. She had lied to me, taught me to regard Alcoholics Anonymous is a sacrosanct program in line with the Bible and Christian faith.

None of that is true. Alcoholics Anonymous is a dangerous cult, founded by an evil fraud who wanted to turn himself into a modern-day Messiah. He never worked his program, really. A serial smoker and adulterer, Bill Wilson was clamoring for alcohol at the end of his life all while sucking canned air on an oxygen tank to get through the last days of his miserable existence.

But there are not one, but two good things I remember about Pam. I am sure that there will be more things. I see how good God is, and that all the while when I suffered in lies and the bondage of errors which Pam had forced upon me.

1. How Pam Quit Smoking.

This is a story I never hesitate to share with others. When she started running with Alcoholics Anonymous, she quit drinking in 1978. However, she still smoked like a chimney. She smoked everywhere. This addiction was so much harder to quit.

Not until 1984, when she was in her bedroom (and I think I saw this when I was a little kid, and all of us were living in a tract home in the Harbor Gateway section of Los Angeles County), did she cry out for help.

She prayed:

"Lord, I have little faith in you. I have no faith in myself. Please take away from this desire to smoke."

And she was set free! No 12 Steps, no working a program. She had no confidence in her flesh, in her self-effort, and she committed herself completely to the grace of God.

2. She knew that I was going to be a well-established writer.

It was my Freshman year in high school. I was constantly writing stuff down. When my sister was graduating from 8th grade, and we were attending her promotion ceremony at Zamperini Stadium in Torrance.

"You will be published," she remarked, trusting full well that I would be well regarded fully for the things that I would write.

How true that is today! Amen.