My mother, God rest her soul, had a wonderful laugh and a beautiful smile. Her spirit was one of joy. 

Louise Buley also had a way with words. She spoke honestly and bluntly, and not always from the heart.  

If I am quiet for a moment, I can hear her voice and I have to chuckle because her words were not always calm, sweet and reassuring. Oh, not that she was mean. She was just speaking her mind and wanted to have a little fun at the expense of those she loved. 

Decades later, her quips have stayed with me and when I need a laugh, I think of them. 

To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, my mother was once looking at an older picture of me, from a time when we lived in Priest River. She looked up at me, and said with a big grin, “Gee, you had a fat face!” 

“Mom!” I responded, to which she said, “Well, you did!” 

I guess I did. 

She liked to tease me about my weight, I presume, because I was always running somewhere or doing something.  

“Billy, what size pants do you wear?” she would say. 

“I’m still a 30,” I would answer. 

She shook her head. 

“You’re not. You’re more like a 34.” 

“No, really, I’m a size 30.” 

“No, you’re a 34,” she said with finality. 

Thirty-four it is. 

My mom, who grew up in the Highwood Mountains near Belt, Mont., married my father in her early 20s and they moved to Seattle, where they raised seven children. 

She missed Montana and her nine brothers and sisters and scores of relatives. She missed riding horses and the chores around the farm. 

Every now and then, my mother would say, “I should have never had all you kids. I could have married a farmer and stayed in Montana.” 

To that, we would say, “We love you, Mom."

And she would sit there and laugh, quite pleased with herself. 

Then, there were the nights my brother, Mark, and I would be up late watching TV in our downstairs room. We had the volume so low we couldn't hear it but my mom, in the master bedroom just above ours, had the ears of an elephant. We would hear her footsteps stomp across the floor, open the door to the basement and yell, "Mark and Billy, shut that TV off!" And she would slam the door and stomp back to bed.

We turned it down.

One of her most famous quips came one summer night when we were playing cards in our rental cabin at Whidbey Island. There was a mix-up in dealing the cards, and those at the table quickly blamed my mother. 

She raised her hands and pleaded her innocence.  

“I dealt not,” she said with her knowing smile.

Perhaps she didn’t. 

And then, there was her memory book of pictures and notes from when she and my dad went to Glacier National Park on their honeymoon. As Glacier was my favorite place in the world, I wanted that book. 

Knowing that, my mom guarded it when I was around. 

"Billy, did you take that book?” she would ask if she couldn’t find it. 

“No.” 

"I know you want it."

A minute later, she would find it under some other books or papers. 

“Oh. Here is it. Well, I know you want it,” she would say again. "Maybe I’ll give it to you.” 

I never did get it. 

In the end, no matter what was said, there was never any doubt my mom loved her kids. She gave up a good life in Montana to move to a strange land in Seattle. As my dad was working almost all the time, it was my mom who pretty much raised us. She made breakfasts, lunches and dinners. She put us to bed at night and got us up in the morning. She helped us with homework, drove us to practices and dragged us to church.

Such was her beauty; I have no words.

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Bill Buley is the managing editor of The Press. He can be reached at [email protected].