ARCHIVED BLOGS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THANKS MOM FOR EVERYTHING
Saturday morning we dropped into MacDonald’s for a coffee and a read of the out of town news papers. A feisty elderly women, Emma, dressed in an old coat and rain hat with a grocery cart in tow shuffled past the servers. She looked over my shoulder and asked if I had the horoscope section. Before going grocery shopping she had to know the predictions for her family who were coming home for the week-end She had forgotten her spectacles and I was chosen to read the fates for Scorpio and Leo.
We gave her a ride to the super market to purchase her groceries. Emma was poor but still she had $2.12 to pay for a very small bottle of stock to make her children’s favourite chicken soup.
Sunday is mother’s day and she like countless other millions of women will be taking care of their “kids”. The recipe for being a mother is simple. Two cups of nurturing, three pounds of loving, a pinch of worry and tons of guilt are the pre requisites to being a successful parent.
Many years of taking care of the family supercedes individual needs and career dreams . Exotic expensive vacations and shopping trips for the latest fashion takes a back seat to the needs of the children’s post secondary education and career aspirations . Dreaming of her children’s success is paramount. My son/ daughter the doctor, lawyer, teacher or carpenter is her pride.
I have always envied the bonding that mothers have with their children. The nine months of pregnancy brings forth an intimacy that we mere men can not comprehend. My wife worked afternoons leaving me to take on the dual role of Mommy/ Daddy when I left my teaching job. I was probably the only man in the grocery store who would turn around when my daughter would yell, “Mom”.
I am a grown man with adult children and a wife of my own but I still want to thank my Mom for being their for me. She gave me her love and affection and unswerving support and for this I am for ever grateful. I have to trust God to convey my thanks to her. She passed away many years ago.
I have had the good fortune to marry a like minded women who is the mother of my children. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Young men marry their mothers and women seek out mates that have similar attributes to their fathers.
In to-days busy world our children often move far away with little thought of home. Too often parents are forgotten. A mother and father can feed and care for six kids but rarely do the children have the time, finances or inclination to care for their folks.
The Amish people have a tradition that the daughters live on farms close to home and the youngest son inherits the family homestead. He also has the responsibility to support and care for his parents.
Hopefully this years Mother’s day appreciation will last 365 days.
Len Lesser