Ode to Mothers Everywhere

Because my mother was not with the program, unable to cope with raising children, and my mother's mother was more than willing to become my "mother", I am more than glad to have called her "Mama" for as long as she lived. Mama took on the challenge, after raising her own children, during the years when she could have rested on her laurels - which were many - of raising an additional two rambunctious boys. I was the oldest, probably the most problematic of the two, certainly the most devious! But Mama was never rattled, never at the end of her wits, always composed, and most assuredly, always in charge!

I remember once when I decided to run away. About the age of 9, I thought it would be cool to load everything I owned - not much - onto my red wagon, and leave town. I guess all boys and some girls, including my own daughter, decide to do this at least once during childhood. Wisely, Mama was silent as I piled all that stuff on the wagon and got ready to leave. Then it overtook me all of a sudden: Where would I find something to eat that night for supper? Where would I find a soft, warm bed to sleep in that night? Where in the heck was I going anyway? I was just a kid and needed my parents, especially my Mama! Running away all of a sudden didn't look to be all that appealing. I ran in the house, flung myself into Mama's welcoming arms, and sobbed like the end of the world had just occurred. Mama wasn't rattled, not surprised, and most of all, totally accepting and loving. She rocked me, sang to me, and just let me cry it out until I was over the whole thing. No one else, I am convinced, would have sat there and consoled me that way. No one but Mama.

I'm a lot older today. Older than Mama was then, with five of my own grandkids. I love my two kids, my five grandkids, and their "nana", my beloved wife Jenny, with all of the big, sopping, loving heart that was willed to me by my Mama! I sit here today and think of Mama, and thank her profusely, for all the good things she gave me when I was a young 'un, so grateful that I don't know the ends therof! What things, you ask? Well, we didn't have much in the way of worldly riches, enough to get by with the restaurant that she owned, and she always saw to it that we had as much of the "I want's" as she deemed good for us, but not so much that we were spoiled by it all. What she gave us that was most valuable doesn't add up in the money column, but it all adds to riches far beyond money. At the top of the list is faith in Jesus Christ. Add to that, love. Love for my family, love for my country, love for the good and wonderful things in life that can't be purchased with money.

Mama has been gone for a long time now. She was 67 when a stroke took her home to Heaven, and left me motherless. Almost. It was 1974, and I was living, with my own young family, in New England. It was a very sad trip to Georgia for her funeral, and I was left with this extremely empty feeling, wondering just how to handle life without my mama. It was the bottom of the pit. Without the loving caress of my sweet wife, I would have been completely lost. You see, every time something happened, good or bad, I always phoned Mama to tell her. Now I wouldn't be able to do that. I tell you, knowing that she wouldn't be there any more was a really bad, unfathomable feeling. Then, after the funeral service, on the way to the cemetary, something wonderful happened. Something that took away the sting, something that gave me hope after all. I turned to my Mother-In-Law, and said to her, "You have to be my mama now." You know, she accepted that without even a blink! Of course, she nodded and agreed to take on the challenge.

So, though I lost my Mama that spring day in 1974, I was the recipient of a second chance at having a loving parent. She's still with us today, bowed with age, unable to do things she once did on her own, but with us, functional, giving us her unbounded love, the celebrated grandmother, great-grandmother, even great-great-grandmother whom we can turn to and say, "What do you think about this?" She has been for all these years, my substitute Mama, one to whom I can give my love, a great lady who is an inspiration to all her children, and the fulfillment of the Biblical blessing attributed to mothers. I'm grateful to have had the love and affection of not one but two wonderful women as my mothers, and I wouldn't for the world leave out another mother: the mother of my children. It's hard to believe, but we've been married for 41 years now. She's still the apple of my eye, the love of my life, and she will be so as long as I live. No children ever had a better mother than my wife has been to her son and daughter. Not a day goes by that she doesn't speak of at least one of our kids, wondering if they're OK, if they have what they need, if they have enough to eat or warm clothes! What a mother she is!! God bless 'em all, I say! Mothers are the best! The Lord really knew what He was doing when He invented mothers, for what in the world would any of us do without them?

So, on this Mother's Day of 2005, here's to mothers everywhere! Hear! Hear!