JILL SCHRAMM/MDN Dory Alg, who resides at Minot Lodge Senior Living, looks forward to connecting with family this Mother’s Day.

Motherhood is a melding of moments both heart-warming and heart-stopping. Dory Alg of Minot can attest to the tugs and jolts to the heart that come with the title of mother.

A mother since 1968, Alg spent a number of years as a single mom, stretching the food budget and paying for babysitting with tips from her waitressing job.

Alg also instilled a work ethic in her three children. The tips eventually went to her oldest daughter, who agreed to do the babysitting. Cleaning ditches to collect cans for recycling was a family activity that paid for their State Fair outings.

Alg was a teacher, making sure her children knew how to count change and passing on her German cooking skills through demonstration. She was a storyteller, fueling her children’s interest in hearing about the days when their mother was young.

Alg remembers the handmade Mother’s Day gifts her children would bring from school and recalls attending all the school events.

“They were more important to mom than they were for themselves,” she said of those events. “I enjoyed the Christmas ones, the Mother’s Day ones or Easter programs. I remember them all.”

Alg remembers the trips to Medora, the outings to pick Juneberries, the dandelion bouquets, the many lunch tickets that went through the laundry in her son’s pockets and the funerals for the pet fish that passed away and were buried in bandage boxes. She remembers explaining to her daughters why it wasn’t a good idea to make a pet of the mouse they’d caught and inadvertently let escape in the house.

Motherhood hasn’t been without its challenges, and Alg describes her youngest, her son, as her biggest challenge.

“I said I’m going to have snowy white hair by the time I turned 35,” she said. “But he turned out all right.”

One of the scariest times came when her young son and his friend were seriously burned in an accidental fire while playing in the shop of his friend’s father. When her son entered the Army National Guard and was sent to Iraq, she worried the entire time he was gone.

Tough times will come, Alg said, but her advice to young mothers is to not fret.

“You will do OK with your own family,” she said. “Enjoy your family. Be with your family as much as you can.”

Now a grandmother and great-grandmother, Alg has seen her family grow in another way. Her husband, Cecil Alg, with whom she celebrated a 20th wedding anniversary May 7, also has six children, including one living in Minot. Dory’s two daughters live in Minot and her son in East Grand Forks, Minnesota.

The Algs had moved to Harvey after losing their Minot home in the 2011 flood. To be closer to health care and family, they returned last October to Minot, where they live at Minot Lodge Senior Living.

Alg said Mother’s Day typically is a quiet one for her as she encourages her children to celebrate with their families. However, the weekend doesn’t slip away without a phone call, text or someone dropping by, which isn’t that much different from the connection she maintains with her family throughout the year.

“I wouldn’t give up being a mom in any way,” she said. “Even through the tough moments, I wouldn’t give up being a mom. It’s got a lot of precious memories.”