To My Mother

Ina Rea Bittner was born January 3, 1944 in Haskell, Texas. The daughter of first-generation German-Americans, she spent the early years of her life on a cotton farm. She worked hard on that farm, as well as in school, and every endeavor she undertook. Ina Rea loved learning and decided to be a teacher when she grew up. She got her degree in Education at the University of North Texas in Denton. She eventually moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she met her husband, Gary Robertson, and settled. Ina Rea had two children: Charles, the first redhead in five generations; and Lisa, a girl with an over-active imagination. In 1981, the Robertsons moved south to Carlsbad, where Gary and Ina Rea have remained to this day.

My mother is probably the absolute nicest person I know. She is also one of the happiest, most cheerful people I know. My mother is rarely down, and even when she is it does not last long. She was devoted to us all of our lives. When my brother and I were very young, Mom would come home from teaching other people’s children all day, get us all in our “grubbies”, and take us out to play on the swing-set in the backyard. We would swing for what seemed like hours and she taught us songs like “Kookaburra” and “You are My Sunshine”. She read us stories and taught us to read quite young. She rocked us to sleep every night of our early childhood. She made the best spaghetti. During Christmas, she would always pull out Anne Murray’s “Snowbird” and play it while we decorated the Christmas tree.

Mom always believed that God was important to sustaining a family. Long before she gave her life to Christ, she exemplified His love in her love for us. My mother was the first person to show me that God was in our lives even when we weren’t in a church building. My earliest memories of prayer are not in Sunday school, but in a peach stucco house on Tyler Road in the North Valley. That was the most precious gift she could have given me—teaching me to pray and then setting the example of putting on Christ. So I honor her today . . .



Mom, I know that I’m no picnic sometimes, but you always love me through my ugliest moments. I don’t make my bed, I’m a crummy housekeeper, and maybe you feel you somehow dropped the ball when it came to teaching me those things. But you gave me something far more valuable than that, a wonderful, happy childhood full of love and laughter. I don’t think I could ever say it or show it to you enough—you are most precious to me. I love you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day!