MOM'S DAY

 I wanted to write about Moms today, even though all the Moms I knew and loved are gone from my life, except my daughters and daughter- in- law. My birth mother was gone before I was four. My stepmother, who was the best ever, passed when I was in my thirties, and the one who was mom to my kids and me for forty-nine years, was taken from us last year. So you try to get logical, and you say, ‘What is Mother’s Day to me, anymore?” Well, Mothers Day is when we honor ALL our mothers. That maternal bond that we all have, is so strong, it never leaves us. Moms may hold our hand for only a short while, but they hold our hearts all the days of their lives.

There is an old Irish proverb that says. “A man loves his sweethearts the most, his wife the best and his mother forever.” I was so amazed, when our first child was born, to see the transformation of my wife in becoming a mom. She had, before that time, been my buddy, my lover and my best friend. Nothing much changed when we were married, except we were now husband and wife. But the day she became a mom, it was as if some inner talent, that she was never really taught, went into effect and she literally glowed in her new responsibility. I think she realized that, for the first time in her life, someone was totally dependent on her. She had grown this child in her body and had given birth to it and now, for the next eighteen years, she needed to take care of it the best way she knew how. This process would be repeated two more times, and each time, it seemed that she found the time to give them all the same amount of attention. There were no favorites.

As for me—yes, I had responsibilities, and they were my kids too, but it seemed like I had to learn to be a dad, and I wasn’t preprogrammed like she had been. You see it in the animal kingdom, when the female dog gives birth to her pups; she licks them clean and nurses them. She usually puts the run on the male at this time, because she knows he’s no help, and is more of a threat than anything. It’s her responsibility and she accepts that. Forgive me, moms, for my analogy using an animal, but I’m trying to get a point across here, and it’s the only way I know how. The point being—that true motherhood is inherent.

When my wife died, my kids weren’t the only one to lose their mom; the whole family lost its mom. I have, in the last few months, realized all of the things she did for me, too. I can cook and clean and wash my own clothes, but I can’t take of myself physically and emotionally the way she did. Think about walking in the sun someday, and suddenly realizing you have no shadow. That’s what true loneliness is all about.  Maybe she knew that, when I left my mom to take her as my partner, there was going to be some mothering involved with it. I think all wives will agree, that the biggest kid they have, is the one they married. That man never really grows away from his mom, and she now has to fill that void. There has to be a special place, in heaven, for mothers. I only hope, if I get to heaven, they will let me visit.