NEDRA MARCIA SELIADY MOROSE
With her radiant red hair, brilliant colored accouterment, open liberal mind, and fierce family loyalty, my mother is the architect of four idyllic childhoods and the empowering force that propelled me and my siblings to live our best lives.
The extraordinary woman born Nedra Marcia Seliady savors the role of motherhood as though she were born to it. An only child, the matriarch to a brood of twenty, always knew she wanted a big family.
When we were growing up she used to live for the chaos that having four children created. One of her true gifts as a mother is the stride in which she approaches situations. She used to tell me nothing would shock her, and nothing really ever did.
When my siblings and I were coming of age in the 1970s and 1980's she made it her mission to make our home the happiest, hippest place to be, welcoming our friends, endlessly cooking, and being a party to all of our crazy antics.
President of the PTA, accomplice to endless shenanigans, planner of excellent family vacations, my supportive, accepting, understanding, compassionate, selfless, generous, strong, sensitive mother is my life’s guiding force.
Never one to shy away from the truth or an adventure, nothing could rattle Nedra and she was always proud of that. Forever a rebel, Nedra is a throwback to an era where women went from their father's home to their husband's home. She married my dad as a teenager and had four kids long before her 25th birthday but otherwise, she never followed the predestined formula that her friends subscribed to.
She always told me she wished she had the same advantages my siblings and I had and convinced me anything was possible. My mom encouraged all of us to pursue every dream and follow every lead. Seize the day, go, and don’t look back, was the message she sent as I grew up and grew restless in our St. Louis, Missouri home.
My mom has always been my biggest supporter, my best friend, and my closest confidant.
She made me believe I was smart and I could achieve anything I wanted. She gave me the confidence to take on the world. When all of her traditional, midwestern friends were joining country clubs and insisting their children attend one of two universities close to home, she encouraged the opposite, steadfastly refusing to become what she referred to as “one of the lemmings.”
A screamer (in my younger years) who keeps a spotless home and demands everything is put in its place, my mother loves as fiercely and loudly as she hollers up the stairs.
When, in my dramatic fashion, I expressed my deepest desire to get out of town and graduate early from high school (GASP whispered most of Nedra’s friends) she supported me. When I only wanted to attend college out of state, she supported me. She often told my dad only what he needed to know and in doing so, she felt like my accomplice and my friend, and she single-handedly enabled and encouraged me to fly. When I left home at the tender age of eighteen and moved as far away as possible, she was steadily by my side and has been, at every turn. Reassuring, and always up for whatever adventures I could cook up there is nothing Neds won’t try at least once.
“I was born in the wrong era,” she used to say, as she encouraged her three daughters to seek out an education and careers and lives that did not depend on men. She never wanted us to be like everyone else and took pride in our restless spirits and accomplishments.
Married to my amazing selfless father Steven for more than a half-century, my mom went from her father’s house to her husband’s house. A feminist before it was chic, my mom lived vicariously through her daughters in a lot of ways. Although she probably would have liked to be independent, she never lived on her own.
As a lifelong, full-time housewife and mother of four, my mom is old-fashioned in some ways but an insurgent in her heart.
For well over half of her life my Dad has consistently been her ally and provider and nothing less than her lifelong best friend. As the matriarch and patriarch of an extraordinary family, my parents know how to celebrate life and more importantly how to keep life in perspective and appreciate the little things no matter how tough the going gets.